Drawn  by  W.  T.  Benda. 


HAVE  REVERENCE, 
O  COMER  IN  THE  NIGHT, 
FOR  THE  HOUSE  OF  THE 
DEAD.  TURN,  TURN  AWAY, 
WHILE  IT  YET  IS  TIME." 


STAMBOUL   NIGHTS 


BY 

H.  G.  DWIGHT 

Author  of  "Constantinople  Old  and  New1 


FRONTISPIECE  BY 

W.  T.  BENDA 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1916,  by 

Doubleday,  Page  &  Company 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 

translation  into  foreign  languages, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


TO 

PAUL  REVERE  REYNOLDS 

WHO  SPEAKS  BITTER  WORDS  OF  THE  CHIVALRY  OF  SCRIBBLERS 
BUT  WHO  CHIVALROUSLY  ENTREATS  THEM 


331262 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


The  Scribe  to  a  Possible  Reader    .     .     .  ix 

The  Leopard  of  the  Sea 3 

Mortmain 25 

Mehmish  .     .     .     .     .     .     .....  59 

The  Glass  House    ........  75 

The  House  of  the  Giraffe 105 

The  Golden  Javelin     .......  152 

His  Beatitude 176 

The  Place  of  Martyrs 202 

Under  the  Arch 219 

For  the  Faith 238 

Mill  Valley 267 

The  Regicide 287 

The  River  of  the  Moon 311 

In  the  Pasha's  Garden      .  339 


Vll 


THE  SCRIBE  TO  A  POSSIBLE  READER 

"Yes"  said  Sir  Thomas,  speaking  of  a  fashionable 
novel,  "it  certainly  does  seem  strange;  but  the  novelist 
was  right.  Such  things  do  happen." 

"But  my  dear  sir,"  I  burst  out,  in  the  rudest  manner, 
"think  what  life  really  is — just  think  what  happens! 
Why  people  suddenly  swell  up,  turn  dark  purple;  hang 
themselves  on  meat  hooks;  they  are  drowned  in  horse- 
ponds,  run  over  by  butchers'  carts,  burnt  alive  and 
cooked  like  mutton  chops!" 

— Logan  Pear  sail  Smith:  TRIVIA. 

OF  THE  following  stories  five  have  appeared 
in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  three  in  Scribner's 
Magazine,  and  one  each  in  Appleton's  Magazine, 
the  English  Review,  Harper's  Weekly,  Mc- 
Clure's  Magazine,  and  Putnam's  Monthly.  To 
the  courtesy  of  the  editors  and  publishers  of 
these  periodicals  I  am  indebted  for  permission 
to  tell  my  tales  a  second  time — although  I  may 
add  that  not  one  of  the  tales  is  told  identically 
as  it  was  the  first  time.  I  am  also  under  obli 
gations  to  Messrs.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons  for 
kindly  allowing  me  to  use  again  an  illustration 
and  a  Turkish  seal  already  published  by  them. 
The  sketch  entitled  "Mehmish"  has  for  excel 
lent  reasons  been  despised  and  rejected  of  all 
editors.  For  no  better  reason  than  that  it  hap- 


THE  SCRIBE  TO  A  POSSIBLE  READER 

pens  to  be  true,  however,  and  because  it  is  in  its 
way  characteristic,  I  keep  it  in  the  company  of 
its  more  fortunate  contemporaries. 

The  teller  of  the  stories  has  inherited  enough 
Puritanism  to  believe  in  the  uses  of  adversity, 
while  reserving  judgment  on  the  sweetness 
thereof,  and  he  raises  no  outcry  against  the 
discouragements  through  which  his  somewhat 
exotic  fictions  have  slowly  made  their  way  into 
print.  But  he  would  be  less  than  human  if 
something  in  him  did  not  warm  toward  those 
among  the  arbiters  of  destiny  who  first  granted 
him  a  hearing.  Let  him,  then,  express  particu 
lar  gratitude  to  Mr.  E.  L.  Burlingame,  who 
accepted  for  Scribner's  Magazine  the  earliest  of 
these  stories,  "For  the  Faith" — of  which  others 
had  earlier  reading;  to  Miss  Willa  Sibert 
Gather,  who  as  editor  of  McClure's  Magazine 
puffed  up  an  obscure  heart  with  pride  by  com 
missioning  Frank  Brangwyn  to  paint  a  picture 
for  "Mill  Valley";  and  to  Mr.  Ellery  Sedgwick, 
who  found  room  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  a 
thrice-rejected  "Leopard  of  the  Sea" — who  even 
found  kind  words  for  a  scribe  unused  enough  to 
such  sounds  to  be  childishly  heartened  by  them. 
I  cannot  help  feeling  grateful,  either,  to  a  pub 
lisher  so  venturesome  as  to  bring  out  a  volume 
of  short  stories  by  an  unknown  writer.  And  I 
wish  I  might  acknowledge  the  many  debts  I  owe 


THE  SCRIBE  TO  A  POSSIBLE  READER 

in  the  way  of  material.  No  good  fairy,  alas, 
dropped  the  gift  of  invention  into  my  cradle,  and 
not  one  of  these  stories  could  really  be  called 
mine.  Several  of  them  I  put  on  paper  almost 
exactly  as  they  were  told  me.  More  of  them 
were  pieced  together  out  of  odd  bits  of  expe 
rience  and  gossip.  The  seed  of  one  was  con 
tained  in  a  paragraph  of  the  Matin  which  I 
read  one  morning  in  Paris.  And  another  may 
be  found,  in  miniature,  in  Stendhal's  "De 
F  Amour."  To  that  comprehending  Frenchman, 
unhappily,  it  was  never  given  to  peruse  "When 
'Omer  smote  'is  bloomin'  lyre  .  .  .  ! " 


STAMBOUL  NIGHTS 


STAMBOUL  NIGHTS 


THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA 

Power  over  the  waters  hath  Allah  given  to  the  un 
believer,  but  over  the  land  to  the  faithful. 

— TURKISH  PROVERB. 

AFTER  it  was  quite  dark,  a  man  who 
strolled  by  happened  to  catch  sight  of 
my  camera.  He  stopped  and  began  to 
examine  it.  I  discreetly  lit  a  cigarette  in  order 
to  show  him  that  the  camera  had  a  proprietor. 
He  continued  his  inspection,  as  much  as  to  show 
me  that  he  had  known  I  was  there.  Then  he 
took  out  his  tobacco  box,  rolled  a  cigarette  with 
deliberation,  came  up  to  me,  saluted  me  politely, 
and  lighted  his  cigarette  from  mine.  It  is  the 
custom  of  the  country,  you  know.  Nobody  has 
any  matches.  I  suppose  somebody  did  once,  but 
since  then  everybody  has  gone  on  taking  the 
sacred  fire  from  everybody  else. 

Having  made  the  second  salutation  of  usage, 
the  stranger  showed  no  haste  to  be  off.  Indeed, 
after  standing  a  moment,  he  sat  down  on  an- 

3 


4          THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA 

other  stone  near  me— not  so  near  as  the  Greek 
had  done.  From  that,  and  from  his  silence,  and 
from  a  certain  easy  awkwardness  about  him,  I 
guessed  he  was  a  Turk. 

"Do  you  make  postcards?"  he  asked  at  last. 

"No,"  I  said,  "I  am  just  taking  a  picture." 

"Ah,  you  have  a  whim." 

"Yes,"  I  assented,  "I  have  a  whim."  And  I 
smiled  to  myself  in  the  dark  at  the  pleasant 
idiom. 

"Why  do  you  take  pictures  now,  when  it  is 
dark?"  pursued  my  companion.  "There  is  a 
very  pretty  view  from  here  in  the  daytime,  but 
can  your  machine  see  it  at  night?" 

I  did  not  mind  his  inquisitiveness.  There 
was  nothing  eager  or  insistent  about  it.  It  was 
simple  and  natural,  and  there  was  a  quality  in 
it  that  I  often  feel  in  the  Turks,  of  being  able 
to  take  the  preliminaries  of  life  for  granted. 
The  man  was  evidently  not  of  the  higher 
classes,  but  neither  was  he  of  the  lowest.  I 
could  make  out  that  he  wore  European  clothes 
and  no  collar. 

"I  want  to  get  the  lights  of  Ramazan,"  I 
explained  to  him.  "I  took  one  picture  at  sun 
set,  so  as  to  get  the  shape  of  Yeni  Jami  and  the 
way  the  Golden  Horn  lies  behind  it,  and  after 
ward  I  shall  take  another  on  the  same  plate,  for 
the  lights." 


THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA  5 

"Ah !"  he  uttered,  as  if.  perfectly  compre 
hending  my  whim.  And  after  a  pause  he  added : 
"They  must  make  a  great  feast  at  Yeni  Jami 
to-night.  They  have  not  lighted  one  lamp 
yet." 

It  was  true.  The  minarets  of  St.  Sophia,  the 
Siilei'manieh,  all  the  other  great  mosques  that 
ride  the  crest  of  Stamboul,  already  wore  their 
necklaces  of  gold  beads,  while  mysterious  pen 
dants  began  to  twinkle  between  them.  We 
watched  one  spark  after  another  spell  "O 
Mohammed !"  above  the  dome  of  St.  Sophia,  and 
a  golden  flower  grew  out  of  the  dark  between 
the  minarets  of  Bai'ezid. 

"Do  you  come  from  far?"  suddenly  asked  my 
companion. 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "from  America." 

"From  America,"  he  repeated.  I  could  see 
by  his  tone  that  the  name  did  not  suggest  very 
much  to  him.  "I  have  been  to  many  countries, 
but  I  have  not  been  to  America.  How  many 
days  does  it  take  to  go  ?" 

"Eh,"  I  replied,  "if  you  pay  very  much  and  go 
half  the  way  by  train  you  can  do  it  in  eight  or 
nine  days.  If  you  go  all  the  way  by  steamer  it 
takes  about  three  weeks." 

"Then  it  is  not  so  far  as  Yemen,"  remarked 
my  companion. 

"Oh,  have  you  been  to  Yemen?"  I  asked  in 


6  THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA 

turn.  "I  have  been  to  many  countries  too,  but 
I  have  never  been  to  Yemen." 

"I  never  would  have  gone  if  I  had  known. 
But  now  they  go  most  of  the  way  by  train." 

"Didn't  you  like  the  sea?"  I  ventured. 

"Fire  is  for  the  brazier  and  water  is  for  the 
cup,"  returned  my  companion  somewhat  enig 
matically. 

A  flicker  came  out  against  one  of  the  dark 
lances  of  Yeni  Jami,  and  then  three  small  lamps 
— which  were  glass  cups  of  oil  with  a  floating 
wick — dropped  into  place  one  above  another. 
Presently  three  more  appeared  beside  them, 
and  three  more,  until  the  lower  gallery  of  the 
minaret  was  set  off  with  its  triple  circlet  of 
light.  There  was  an  interval,  during  which  one 
could  imagine  a  turbaned  person  picking  his 
way  up  a  corkscrew  stair  of  stone,  and  the  sec 
ond  gallery  put  on  a  similar  ornament.  I  was 
wondering  whether  the  turbaned  person  would 
have  to  climb  all  the  way  down  to  the  ground 
and  up  into  the  other  minaret,  when  lights  be 
gan  to  flicker  there  too.  But  what  I  really  won 
dered  was  what  my  companion  meant  by  his 
odd  proverb. 

"Have  you  been  much  on  the  sea?"  I  asked, 
hoping  to  find  out. 

"Eh,  my  father  was  a  stoker  on  the  Leopard 
of  the  Sea,  and  when  I  was  thirteen  or  fourteen 


THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA  7 

I  went  on  board  too.  The  captain  took  a  fancy 
to  me,  and  when  I  grew  up  they  made  me  a 
lieutenant.  But  we  only  went  outside  once: 
that  time  we  went  to  Yemen." 

"Oh !"  I  exclaimed,  beginning  to  be  interested 
in  my  man  and  resolving  to  seize  him  by  the 
leg  if  he  got  up  from  his  stone.  "What  sort  of 
a  ship  was  the  Leopard  of  the  Sea?" 

"Didn't  you  ever  hear  of  her?"  he  asked  in 
surprise.  I  didn't  answer  and  he  went  on :  "She 
was  not  a  battleship,  if  that  is  what  you  mean. 
They  called  her  a  cruiser.  She  was  an  old 
steamer  they  bought  in  Europe.  Sometimes 
she  carried  soldiers  to  the  Dardanelles,  but 
most  of  the  time  she  lay  in  the  Golden  Horn." 

"How  did  she  happen  to  go  to  Yemen?" 

The  experience  of  a  lengthening  career  has 
taught  me  that  information  may  sometimes  be 
obtained  by  asking  for  it,  and  this  time  my 
strategy  was  successful. 

"It  was  an  idea  of  Sultan  Hamid.  One  night, 
late  late,  an  aide-de-camp  from  the  Palace 
came  on  board  with  an  officer  in  chains,  and 
said  that  he  was  to  be  taken  at  once  to  Yemen. 
Ten  minutes  later  another  aide-de-camp  came 
to  say  good-bye  to  the  officer,  from  the  Sultan, 
and  to  give  him  his  promotion  as  general,  and 
to  make  him  a  present  of  five  hundred  pounds. 
They  said  he  was  a  Circassian  prince  and  that 


8  THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA 

he  had  been  plotting.  It  was  a  lie.  But  Sultan 
Hamid  believed  it.  And  how  was  he  to  know 
that  you  cannot  start  for  Yemen  like  that,  in 
ten  minutes?  It  was  not  his  trade.  It  was 
ours ;  but  none  of  us  was  on  board,  and  we  had 
no  coal,  and  no  food,  and  nothing,  and  the  peo 
ple  from  the  Palace  said  we  must  be  gone  before 
morning.  So  sailors  came  to  wake  us  up—as 
many  of  us  as  they  could  find — and  there  was 
great  calamity.  And  we  did  start  before  morn 
ing.  We  got  a  tug  to  pull  us,  and  we  went 
around  to  Kuchuk  Chekmejeh,  in  the  Marmora, 
and  there  we  stayed  till  we  were  ready  to  start. 
It  took  us  three  or  four  weeks.  The  machine 
was  old  and  broken,  and  we  had  to  get  an  En 
glishman  to  mend  it.  And  the  Leopard  of  the 
Sea  had  been  lying  so  long  in  the  harbour  that 
no  one  could  find  her  bottom.  It  was  all  grown 
with  bushes  and  trees,  like  a  garden.  And  what 
mussels  grew  in  the  garden!  And  what  pilaf 
they  made !  We  picked  off  all  we  could,  and  we 
ate  them  ourselves  till  we  were  sick  of  them, 
and  we  sold  the  rest.  The  mussels  of  the 
Leopard  of  the  Sea  were  famous  in  Constan 
tinople.  Afterward  we  were  sorry  we  had  sold 
the  mussels  though.  When  at  last  we  started 
for  Yemen  each  one  of  us  had  ten.  loaves  of 
bread  and  some  olives  and  cheese.  We  didn't 
know  how  long  we  would  be  on  the  way.  At  the 


THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA  9 

end  of  three  days  we  had  only  just  passed  the 
Dardanelles  and  the  cheese  and  olives  were 
gone.  A  day  or  two  later  the  bread  was  gone 
too,  though  we  were  still  far  from  Yemen." 

"How  about  water?"  I  asked. 

"Water  we  had,  thanks  to  God!  We  had  a 
machine  for  making  the  water  of  the  sea  sweet. 
It  was  only  food  we  didn't  have.  We  had  to 
stop  at  an  island  and  get  some." 

"What  island  was  it  ?"  pursued  I,  in  curiosity, 
wondering  how  far  the  Leopard  of  the  Sea  got 
on  ten  loaves  of  bread  a  man. 

"How  should  I  know?  It  was  an  island  in 
the  White  Sea."  By  which  he  meant  not  our 
White  Sea  but  the  Mediterranean.  "I  didn't 
ask  the  name.  Greeks  lived  on  it.  The  gov 
ernor  of  course  was  a  Turk.  We  were  very 
sorry  when  we  left  it.  The  sea  began  to  show 
himself  after  that.  Until  then  we  had  not 
known  him." 

"Were  you  sick?" 

The  darkness  hid  on  my  face  the  grin  with 
out  which  this  question  may  not  be  asked. 

"My  soul!  Who  is  not  sick  when  the  wind 
blows  on  the  sea — unless  he  is  accustomed  ?  We 
were  not  accustomed.  How  should  we  be  ?  We 
had  nevei  put  our  noses  outside  the  Dar 
danelles.  It  was  worst  for  the  captain  and 
me,  because  we  had  to  stay  on  deck  and  steer 


10         THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA 

whether  we  were  sick  or  not.  But  we  got  ac 
customed  by  and  by.  And  the  captain  taught 
me  a  little  about  the  machine  which  points  its 
finger  at  the  Great  Bear,  and  about  the  papers 
wherein  are  written  all  the  lands  and  islands 
of  the  earth.  And  after  two  or  three  weeks  we 
found  Egypt.  It  seemed  to  me  a  miracle. 
When  I  saw  it  lying  white  and  flat  on  the  edge 
of  the  sea  and  the  captain  said  it  was  Egypt, 
I  said  to  myself:  How  do  we  know  that  it  is 
Egypt  ?  It  may  be  Persia.  It  may  be  England. 
But  it  was  Egypt,  thanks  to  God!  And  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  Circassian  I  don't  know 
what  we  would  have  done. 

"He  was  a  very  good  man.  The  aide-de 
camp  who  brought  him  from  the  Palace  said 
that  he  was  to  be  kept  shut  up  in  a  small  room 
and  that  he  was  to  eat  nothing  but  bread  and 
water.  But  we  were  all  shut  up  and  none  of  us 
had  anything  but  bread  and  water,  and  not 
always  that.  And  so  the  captain  very  soon  let 
the  Circassian  do  what  he  liked.  And  when  we 
got  to  Egypt  the  Circassian  bought  food  and 
coal  for  us,  out  of  the  money  the  Sultan  had 
given  him.  For  we  had  none.  We  had  spent 
all  we  had  at  Kuchiik  Chekmejeh  and  at  the 
island.  Then  we  went  on,  through  the  river 
that  goes  into  the  Arabian  Sea.  We  had  orders 
to  take  the  Circassian  to  Jiddeh;  but  at  Suez 


THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA         11 

they  brought  us  a  telegram  telling  us  to  go  on 
without  stopping  to  Hodeida,  and  afterward  to 
bring  the  Circassian  back  to  Jiddeh.  At  Ho 
deida,  however,  we  found  another  telegram 
which  said  that  we  were  to  go  on  to  Basra,  for 
some  soldiers." 

"To  Basra!"  I  exclaimed. 

I  began  to  feel  hopelessly  choked  up  with 
questions.  I  wanted  to  know  more  about  the 
Circassian.  I  wanted  to  know  more  about  the 
captain.  I  wanted  to  know  more  about  every 
thing.  The  man  whom  chance  had  brought  for 
a  moment  to  a  stone  beside  me  had  an  Odyssey 
in  him,  if  one  could  only  get  at  it. 

"To  Basra,  ya!"  he  said  before  I  could  stop 
him.  "And  a  time  we  had  getting  to  Basra — 
more  than  two  months.  It  was  so  hot  we  could 
not  sleep  at  night,  and  again  we  had  nothing  to 
eat.  And  worst  of  all,  the  machine  that  made 
the  water  of  the  sea  sweet  got  a  hole  in  it,  we 
used  it  so  much,  and  after  that  the  water  was 
only  partly  sweet.  And  it  was  so  bad  we  tried 
to  find  water  on  the  land,  and  one  night  we  went 
too  near  and  sat."  By  which  the  mate  of  the 
Leopard  of  the  Sea  meant  that  they  ran 
aground. 

"We  sat  for  two  weeks,  trying  to  get  away. 
It  was  good  that  the  wind  did  not  blow  in  that 
time.  In  the  end  I  don't  know  whether  more 


12         THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA 

water  came  into  the  sea  or  what  happened,  but 
all  of  a  sudden  we  found  that  we  could  move. 
Then  another  calamity  came  on  our  heads. 
Although  we  had  been  sitting  for  two  weeks  we 
had  been  burning  coal  most  of  the  time,  trying 
to  get  away.  So  before  we  got  to  Basra  no  coal 
was  left.  The  Circassian  had  bought  more  than 
we  needed  to  get  to  Jiddeh  or  even  to  Hodei'da, 
but  we  never  expected  to  go  any  farther.  So 
we  spent  all  our  time  finding  wood  for  the 
machine.  We  burned  up  all  the  doors,  all  the 
chairs,  all  the  tables,  all  the  boats.  We  cut 
down  walls  in  the  ship,  we  tore  up  decks.  And 
then  we  only  just  got  into  the  river  of  Basra. 

"At  Basra  how  good  it  was  to  put  our  feet  on 
the  earth!  And  if  you  knew  what  a  country 
that  is — hot,  flat,  dirty!  They  speak  Arabic 
too,  which  none  of  us  could  understand  but  the 
Circassian.  And  thieves!  We  had  already 
burned  up  most  of  the  ship,  but  they  would 
have  stolen  the  rest  if  we  had  let  them.  So 
although  we  had  come  to  land  we  still  had  no 
peace.  And  twelve  hundred  soldiers  were  wait 
ing  for  us  and  expected  to  be  taken  away  im 
mediately.  They  had  been  in  Arabia  seven 
years,  poor  things,  although  when  they  went 
the  government  promised  that  they  should  stay 
only  three.  There  had  been  three  thousand  of 
them  in  the  beginning.  More  than  half  of  them 


THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA         13 

had  died,  not  from  bullets  but  from  the  sun  of 
that  country  and  its  poisonous  air.  And  not 
one  of  them  had  been  paid  or  had  had  a  new 
uniform  in  seven  years.  You  would  have  wept 
to  see  them — how  ragged  and  thin  they  were, 
and  how  they  begged  us  to  pay  them  and  take 
them  away. 

"How  could  we  take  them  away  or  pay  them? 
We  had  not  been  paid  ourselves  for  four  or  five 
months,  and  we  had  no  food  or  water  or  coal, 
and  nobody  would  give  us  any.  We  went  to  the 
governor,  we  went  to  the  general,  we  went  to 
everybody;  but  not  a  para  could  we  get.  The 
Circassian  still  had  a  little  money,  most  of 
which  we  used  in  telegraphing  to  Constanti 
nople.  And  still  no  money  came.  We  had  to 
sell  our  watches,  our  clothes,  anything  we  had 
left.  One  day  we  even  sold  two  windows — you 
know  the  little  round  windows  in  the  wall  of  a 
ship?  A  fat  Arab  wanted  them  for  his  house. 
What  could  we  do?  We  had  to  live.  We 
couldn't  find  any  others  to  take  their  places  and 
so  we  nailed  kerosene  tins  over  the  holes — one 
inside  and  one  outside.  They  looked  very 
funny,  like  blind  eyes.  They  were  at  the  bow, 
one  on  each  side." 

My  companion  paused  a  moment,  as  if  mus 
ing  over  the  blind  eyes  of  the  Leopard  of  the 
Sea.  Then  he  rolled  himself  another  cigarette. 


14         THE  LEOPARD  OF  THi^  SEA 

I  noticed  for  the  first  time  that  the  minarets  of 
Yeni  Jami  were  fully  alight,  and  that  other 
lights  were  beginning  to  hang  in  the  darkness 
between  them. 

"In  the  end  it  was  the  Circassian  again  who 
got  us  away  from  Basra.  He  gave  the  captain 
the  last  money  he  had  and  told  him  to  telegraph 
to  Sultan  Hamid  and  say  five  hundred  pounds 
must  be  sent  to  us  immediately  or  we  would  go 
to  Europe  and  set  the  Circassian  free.  How 
was  Sultan  Hamid  in  his  palace  to  know  that 
we  had  no  coal  and  could  not  go  to  Europe  if 
we  wanted  to  ?  But  the  next  day  the  governor 
came  to  the  captain  with  five  hundred  pounds 
and  a  decoration,  which  he  pinned  on  his  coat 
with  much  speech,  and  invited  him  not  to  let 
the  dangerous  Circassian  go.  The  dangerous 
Circassian  was  there  listening  with  the  others, 
and  the  governor  liked  to  speak  with  him  more 
than  with  any  of  us,  because  he  was  an  effendi 
and  knew  all  the  people  of  the  Palace.  The  gov 
ernor  after  all,  poor  man,  was  no  better  than 
an  exile  himself. 

"So  at  last  we  started  back  to  Jiddeh,  with 
money  in  our  pockets  and  bread  in  the  cupboard 
and  coal  in  the  machine.  The  captain  took  care 
to  put  a  lot  in  the  place  where  the  windows 
had  been  that  he  sold,  to  keep  the  tin  tight 
against  the  wall  of  the  ship.  We  got  along  very 


THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA         15 

well  that  time.  We  reached  Jiddeh  in  forty-five 
days.  Before  we  got  there  the  captain  told  the 
Circassian  that  he  would  not  give  him  to  the 
governor  but  that  he  would  give  another  man, 
one  of  the  soldiers,  and  say  it  was  the  Circas 
sian,  and  bring  the  Circassian  back  to  Egypt 
and  let  him  go.  But  the  Circassian  would  not 
allow  him.  He  said  it  was  not  just  that  another 
man  should  be  punished  in  his  place,  and  that 
they  would  find  it  out  in  Constantinople  and 
punish  the  captain  and  the  governor  and  there 
would  be  many  calamities.  Even  when  the  cap 
tain  wept  and  kissed  his  feet,  the  Circassian 
would  not  allow  him.  You  see  they  had  lived 
together  for  so  many  months  and  had  suffered 
so  much  together  that  they  had  become  friends. 
Ah,  he  was  a  very  good  man.  Because  he  was 
a  good  man  God  rewarded  him,  as  you  will  see." 

I  did  not  see  at  once,  however,  for  my  com 
panion  stopped  again.  And  when  he  went  on  it 
was  not  to  give  me  any  essential  light  on  the 
history  of  the  mysterious  Circassian. 

"I  told  you  about  the  soldiers  we  brought 
from  Basra,  who  had  been  in  Arabia  seven 
years  and  who  had  never  been  paid.  They  were 
so  glad  to  leave  Basra  that  they  made  little 
noise  about  their  money,  and  the  general  prom 
ised  them  that  they  would  get  it  in  Jiddeh.  But 
when  they  heard  the  story  of  the  Circassian, 


16         THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA 

how  he  telegraphed  to  Sultan  Hamid  and  got 
money  for  us,  they  said  it  was  a  shame  that  he 
didn't  get  money  for  them  too:  they  had  gone 
seven  years  without  a  para.  And  when  the 
general  of  Jiddeh  told  them  that  they  would  be 
paid  in  Constantinople  they  made  much  noise. 
They  would  not  believe  that  the  general  had  no 
money,  and  they  brought  the  Circassian  into  it 
again  and  said  he  must  telegraph  to  Sultan 
Hamid.  They  could  not  understand!  It  was 
only  when  the  general  threatened  to  keep  them 
in  Yemen  and  send  the  Leopard  of  the  Sea  home 
without  them  that  they  were  quiet. 

"We  were  sorry  to  leave  the  Circassian  in 
Jiddeh,  but  we  were  glad  to  start  away  at  last. 
It  is  the  country  of  the  Prophet,  but  vallah!  it 
is  a  dirty  country!  We  came  quickly  enough 
up  to  Egypt.  The  Leopard  of  the  Sea  walked 
more  slowly  than  ever,  because  the  hole  in  the 
machine  for  making  the  water  of  the  sea  sweet 
spoiled  the  water,  and  the  bad  water  spoiled  the 
machine  of  the  ship.  Still,  we  went  forward  all 
the  time.  And  in  Egypt,  thanks  to  God,  there 
was  no  telegram.  And  our  hearts  became  light 
when  we  came  once  more  into  the  White  Sea, 
where  it  seemed  cold  to  us  after  Yemen. 

"The  captain  said  he  would  stop  nowhere  till 
we  got  to  the  Dardanelles,  lest  he  should  find 
a  telegram.  But  our  calamities  were  not  quite 


THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA         17 

done.  It  was  because  of  the  soldiers  again. 
After  they  smelled  the  air  of  their  country  once 
more  and  ate  bread  every  day,  something  came 
to  them.  They  went  to  the  captain  one  morn 
ing  and  said,  'We  wish  to  go  to  Beirout/  The 
captain  told  them  he  couldn't  go  to  Bei'rout. 
He  had  orders  to  go  to  Constantinople.  What 
did  they  wish  in  Bei'rout?  They  merely  an 
swered,  'We  wish  to  go  to  Bei'rout.'  And  in  the 
end  they  went  to  Bei'rout.  What  could  the  cap 
tain  do  ?  They  were  a  thousand,  with  guns,  and 
we  were  forty  or  fifty;  and  they  were  very 
angry.  They  said  they  were  fools  ever  to  have 
left  Arabia  without  their  money  and  they  were 
tired  of  promises. 

"So  we  went  to  Bei'rout.  The  soldiers  told 
the  captain  that  he  need  not  mix  in  their  busi 
ness  :  they  had  thought  of  a  thing  to  do.  Only 
let  him  wait  till  they  were  ready  to  go.  And 
half  of  them  stayed  on  the  steamer  to  see  that 
he  did  not  go  away  and  leave  them.  The  other 
half  went  on  shore  and  asked  where  was  the 
governor's  palace.  Every  one  was  much  sur 
prised  to  see  six  hundred  ragged  soldiers  going 
to  the  governor's  palace,  and  many  followed 
them.  When  they  reached  the  palace  the  sol 
diers  asked  for  the  governor.  A  servant  told 
them  that  the  governor  was  not  there.  'Never 
mind/  said  the  soldiers,  'we  are  six  hundred, 


18         THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA 

and  on  the  ship  there  are  six  hundred  more,  and 
we  will  find  the  governor/  Then  they  were  told 
to  wait  a  little  and  the  governor  would  come. 
And  the  governor  did  come.  For  I  suppose  he 
was  not  pleased  that  there  should  be  scandal 
in  the  city.  Also  it  happened  that  he  had  very 
few  soldiers  of  his  own,  because  there  was 
fighting  in  the  Lebanon. 

"He  received  the  six  hundred  very  politely, 
and  gave  them  coffee  and  cigarettes,  and  asked 
them  what  he  could  do  for  them.  And  they  told 
him  their  story,  and  what  they  had  suffered, 
and  how  many  of  them  had  died,  and  that  they 
had  never  been  paid,  and  they  said  their  hearts 
were  broken  and  they  wished  their  money.  The 
governor  said  they  were  right,  and  it  was  hard 
for  a  man  to  go  seven  years  without  being  paid. 
Still,  he  was  not  their  general:  how  could  he 
pay  them?  'You  can  telegraph  to  Sultan 
Hamid,'  they  said,  'and  he  will  send  you  the 
money.  We  shall  wait  here  till  the  answer 
comes.'  And  they  waited,  the  six  hundred  of 
them. 

"They  made  no  noise  and  >  .gntened  no  one, 
but  they  sat  there  on  the  floor  with  their  rifles 
on  their  knees,  and  smoked  cigarettes  with  the 
soldiers  of  the  governor— ?vho  pitied  them  and 
said  they  would  never  drive  them  away.  And 
by  and  by  the  governor  came  back  and  said  he 


THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA         19 

had  heard  from  Sultan  Hamid,  who  said  it  was 
a  sin  that  his  children  should  be  treated  in  that 
way,  and  they  should  have  their  money.  And 
then  he  called  a  scribe,  and  they  made  an  ac 
count,  and  the  soldiers  took  the  money.  It  came 
to  eight  or  nine  thousand  pounds.  And  a  mis 
take  was  made  by  the  scribe,  and  some  soldiers 
got  too  little,  and  the  governor  gave  them  what 
was  owed.  And  the  soldiers  said  they  were 
glad  they  had  not  been  paid  in  seven  years — 
to  get  so  much  now. 

"The  captain  was  not  pleased  by  this  work, 
for  it  put  us  back  many  days  and  he  thought 
Sultan  Hamid  might  be  angry  if  he  got  too 
many  telegrams  asking  for  money.  However, 
the  captain  was  pleased  and  we  were  all  pleased 
to  get  away  from  Beirout  with  no  more  trouble. 
But  of  course  the  soldiers  were  the  most 
pleased,  who  smelled  their  own  country  again 
after  seven  years,  and  who  had  their  money  at 
last.  They  sat  on  the  deck  all  day  counting  it, 
and  singing,  and  some  had  pipes  which  they 
played,  and  those  who  were  Laz  or  Kurds  or 
Albanians  danced  the  dances  of  their  country. 
But  before  long  the  sea  began  to  dance,  and 
then  they  stopped.  And  by  and  by  the  wind 
blew  so  hard  they  could  not  stay  on  deck.  We 
did  not  mind,  because  we  were  accustomed ;  and 
the  wind  was  from  the  south,  which  helped  us. 


20         THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA 

But  they  were  not  accustomed,  and  they  were 
very  sick.  The  ship  was  so  small  and  they 
were  so  many  that  downstairs  there  was  no 
room  to  turn  without  stepping  on  a  sick  soldier. 
And  water  poured  down  from  above,  and  they 
all  got  soaked  as  they  lay  on  the  floor.  Even  if 
we  had  not  burned  up  all  the  sofas  and  tables 
and  chairs  in  the  sea  of  Basra  there  never 
would  have  been  beds  enough  for  them.  And  at 
last  there  came  a  night  when  the  captain  and  I 
began  to  think.  The  ship  went  this  side, 
the  ship  went  the  other  side,  waves  rolled  back 
and  forth  in  the  cabin,  everywhere  there  were 
cracks  and  macks  till  we  thought  the  Leopard 
of  the  Sea  would  crack  in  two.  By  God,  it  was 
a  night  of  much  fear.  But  what  is  there  more 
than  kismet?  It  was  our  kismet  that  that  also 
should  pass." 

I  saw  it  was  time  to  open  the  shutter  of  my 
camera,  for  the  lights  between  the  minarets  of 
Yeni  Jami  had  grouped  themselves  into  the 
image  of  a  ship.  It  seemed  an  odd  coincidence. 
When  I  sat  down  again  on  my  stone,  after 
pinching  the  bulb,  the  mate  of  the  Leopard  of 
the  Sea  continued  to  stare  abstractedly  at  the 
little  bark  of  gold  sailing  in  the  dark  sky. 

"Who  shall  escape  his  destiny?"  he  uttered 
at  length.  "For  six  months  we  had  had  no 
peace.  We  had  lacked  bread.  We  had  suffered 


THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA         21 

storms.  We  had  sat  on  the  floor  of  the  sea. 
We  had  been  burned  and  frozen.  We  had  been 
robbed.  We  had  been  worse  oif  than  beggars. 
We  had  been  unjustly  treated.  We  had  eaten 
all  manner  of  dung.  But  no  harm  had  come 
to  us,  thanks  to  God!  And  the  morning  after 
that  night  was  like  a  morning  of  paradise.  The 
sun  was  bright  and  warm.  The  sea  was  blue 
blue.  There  was  no  wind.  There  were  hardly 
any  waves,  for  we  were  among  the  islands 
again.  We  could  see  on  them  the  flowers  of 
almond  trees  and  peach  trees.  The  soldiers  said 
they  heard  the  birds.  They  had  forgotten  all 
their  calamities,  the  soldiers,  and  were  sitting 
on  the  deck  again,  counting  their  gold,  singing, 
playing  pipes,  dancing.  And  in  front  of  us  we 
could  see  the  mountains  of  the  Dardanelles." 

He  sighed,  telling  the  beads  of  the  string  he 
carried  as  he  went  over  the  memory  in  his 
mind. 

"There  was  only  one  thing:  the  Leopard  of 
the  Sea  sat  very  low  in  the  water.  Why  not, 
after  the  rivers  that  came  in  the  night  before  ? 
I  thought  nothing  of  it.  We  pumped,  but  we 
didn't  mind,  because  we  were  so  near  home.  I 
saw,  though,  that  the  captain  was  thinking.  I 
asked  him  if  he  was  afraid  they  would  make 
trouble  for  us  about  the  telegrams  and  the 
money.  Sultan  Hamid  often  did  things  for 


22         THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA 

reasons  that  were  not  apparent,  and  he  never 
forgot. 

"  'God  love  you !'  said  the  captain,  1  think 
nothing  of  that.  But  do  you  remember  those 
windows  we  sold  in  Basra?  Those  are  what 
make  me  think.  We  needed  bread  then,  it  is 
true,  and  no  one  can  blame  us.  Also  we  nailed 
the  tin  on  very  tightly.  But  in  the  storm  I  kept 
thinking  of  them.  And  you  see  the  bow  now  is 
lower  than  the  stern.  Those  blind  eyes  are 
under  water/ 

"  'They  will  still  see  the  way  to  Stamboul,' 
I  told  him.  There  is  plenty  of  coal  behind  the 
tin.' 

"  'Yes/  he  said,  'but  coal  is  like  rice.  It 
drinks  up  water,  more  and  more,  without  your 
knowing  it.' 

"  'Eh,  if  we  have  a  pilaf  of  coal  in  the  ship, 
what  matter?'  I  said. 

"He  laughed. 

"  'I  would  not  mind  so  much. if  we  had  not 
burned  the  boats.  Just  look  downstairs  and  see 
if  there  is  much  water  about/ 

"I  looked,  and  I  couldn't  find  any  to  speak  of. 
I  went  down  to  the  engine  room,  without  telling 
them  why  I  came,  and  there  was  very  little. 
What  they  were  thinking  of  down  there  was  the 
machine.  It  had  become  more  and  more  rotten, 
from  the  bad  water,  till  it  would  hardly  work. 


THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA         23 

The  door  of  our  house  was  open  in  front  of  us, 
but  when  we  would  have  run  to  it  like  boys,  the 
Leopard  of  the  Sea  could  only  walk,  slowly 
slowly,  like  an  old  man." 

He  had  left  out  enormously,  and  I  realized  in 
the  end  that  I  had  small  notion  what  manner  of 
man  he  was  himself.  But  I  am  bound  to  say 
that  he  did  make  vivid,  as  we  squatted  there  on 
our  neighbourly  stones,  the  final  case  of  the 
Leopard  of  the  Sea. 

"Why  should  I  make  much  speech?  The  old 
man  never  found  the  door  of  his  house.  It  was 
because  of  his  blind  eyes.  But  until  the  last 
moment  we  hoped  we  might  get  to  the  Dar 
danelles.  The  sea  became  more  and  more  quiet. 
It  was  more  beautiful  than  anything  I  have 
ever  seen,  like  blue  jewels  with  light  shining 
through  them.  A  great  purple  island  stood  not 
far  away,  and  white  houses  were  on  it.  And 
sails  played  like  children  on  the  blue  of  the  sea. 
It  was  so  beautiful  and  so  still  that  the  soldiers 
were  not  frightened.  They  noticed  that  the 
ship  settled  in  the  water,  but  the  captain  told 
them  it  was  nothing.  He  asked  me  what  we 
should  do — whether  we  should  let  off  steam  to 
keep  the  machine  from  bursting.  We  finally 
decided  not  to.  We  might  reach  land  after  all, 
and  steamers  and  ships  were  all  about  us. 
While  if  we 'let  off  steam  and  signalled  for  help, 


24         THE  LEOPARD  OF  THE  SEA 

there  would  be  much  confusion  and  the  soldiers 
might  make  another  calamity ;  for  they  were 
very  simple.  'Akh!  if  they  only  hadn't  made 
us  go  to  Bei'rout !'  the  captain  said.  'We  would 
have  been  at  home  by  this  time.'  But  we  were 
very  sorry  for  them." 

He  stopped  again  for  a  moment.  Yet  I  knew 
in  my  perverted  literary  heart  that  it  was 
wholly  without  melodramatic  intent. 

"The  sun  set.  Night  came — a  warm  night  of 
stars.  I  remember  how  they  looked,  and  how 
the  soldiers  sang  on  the  deck,  and  then  how  the 
Leopard  of  the  Sea  suddenly  began  to  run — but 
down,  pitching  forward." 

I  wondered  many  things,  but  chiefly  if  he 
would  say  anything  more.  It  seemed  indecent 
to  ask  him — with  that  picture  in -my  eyes  of  a 
lighted  steamer  suddenly  lurching,  bow  fore 
most,  out  of  sight.  Presently  he  did  say  some 
thing,  though  not  just  what  I  hoped.  First, 
however,  he  leaned  over  and  patted  the  ground. 

"The  earth!"  he  said.  "The  earth!  I  like  to 
feel  that  under  my  feet !" 

Then  he  got  up,  made  me  a  courteous  salaam, 
and  left  me  on  my  stone  to  stare  at  the  little 
ship  of  light  hanging  over  the  dark  mosque. 


MORTMAIN 


THE  building  of  the  chapel  on  the  Hill  of 
the  Arrow  Makers  was  for  Mr.  Bisbee, 
the  Reverend  Horatio  Bisbee,  who  had 
that  matter  in  charge,  an  abounding  means  of 
grace.  At  the  time,  to  be  sure,  he  thought  it 
the  very  devil — although  he  was  not  the  man  to 
say  so.  But  in  after  years  the  structure  stood 
for  him  as  a  monument  to  many  things  that 
might  have  remained  sealed  to  him  had  he 
stayed  happily  at  home  in  Iowa.  And  it  even 
became  his  to  arrive  at  the  somewhat  rare 
realization  that  it  is  well  for  a  man  to  be  able 
to  say  of  himself:  "There  are  more  things  in 
heaven  and  earth,  Horatio.  ..." 

The  first  of  them  was  the  Pasha  to  whom  the 
ground  belonged.  He  lived  in  a  tumbledown 
konak  with  nothing  but  divine  providence  and 
three  thin  props  to  keep  him  from  sliding  into 
the  street,  and  he  ought  to  have  been  delighted 
to  get  rid  of  such  a  draughty  rambling  old  fire- 
trap  for  nothing.  Whereas  he  pretended  that 

25 


26  MORTMAIN 

he  loved  every  unpainted  board  on  the  place, 
where  his  fathers  had  lived  ever  since  the  Con 
quest  and  where  his  sons  should  have  lived 
after  him,  if —  That  if  was  the  measure  of  his 
unreasonableness.  For  he  also  pretended  that 
everything  had  been  spoiled  for  him  by  these 
uncircumcised  barbarians  who  had  come  and 
planted  their  infernal  printing  presses  at  his 
ear.  How  could  you  take  a  nap  between  meals, 
how  could  you  sip  a  coffee  in  peace,  how  could 
you  look  after  your  rose-bushes — janim! — 
when  your  light  was  darkened  by  a  vast  pest- 
house  in  which  the  Christians  were  already 
tasting  their  portion  of  the  world  to  come,  and 
which  resounded  from  noon  to  noon  as  with  the 
torments  of  the  damned?  And  then  they  said 
they  merely  wished  to  do  good!  Let  them 
therefore  pay  the  Pasha's  price. 

They  did,  with  much  grumbling,  being  more 
anxious  for  his  konak  than  his  company.  Only 
it  was  many  days  before  Mr.  Bisbee,  being 
fresh  from  his  native  land,  learned  that  a 
Pasha's  price  is  not  necessarily  the  one  he  pro 
poses  to  you,  or  that  when  a  Pasha  says  yes 
he  expresses  a  courteous  desire  of  not  injuring 
your  feelings,  rather  than  any  intention  of 
keeping  his  word.  And  according  to  the  lights 
of  Iowa  it  was  somewhat  difficult  to  make  out 
what  numberless  cups  of  coffee — Mr.  Bisbee 


MORTMAIN  27 

thought  them  very  nasty  at  first,  too — and  end 
less  disquisitions  on  the  culture  of  roses  had  to 
do  with  a  matter  of  real  estate. 

Then  the  Pasha  had  a  pet  cheetah  that  some 
body  had  brought  him  from  Persia,  and  when 
ever  you  went  into  the  place  the  creature  would 
jump  at  you  as  if  he  meant  to  tear  you  limb 
from  limb.  He  was  quite  capable  of  it,  too — 
although  he  merely  wanted  to  rub  against  your 
legs,  purring  affectionately,  like  the  big  cat  he 
was.  But  as  he  sometimes  knocked  you  over, 
and  as  the  purr  of  a  hunting-leopard  sounds 
unpleasantly  like  a  buzz-saw,  the  Reverend  Ho 
ratio  did  not  encourage  the  beast's  advances. 
Which  perceiving,  the  Pasha  seldom  failed  to 
call  in  the  cheetah  at  delicate  points  in  the 
negotiation. 

It  came  in  time  to  an  end,  as  even  Oriental 
negotiations  will — only  to  plunge  the  unhappy 
man  of  God  into  another,  involving  yet  more 
harassing  delays  and  more  fantastic  processes 
of  law.  This  was  the  affair  of  the  Arrow 
Makers.  Mr.  Bisbee,  born  in  a  land  where  great 
corporations  tremble  before  small  inventors 
who  take  thought  day  and  night  how  to  ruin 
them,  made  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  the 
Arrow  Makers,  whose  prosperity  might  be  sup 
posed  to  have  been  affected  by  the  not  alto 
gether  recent  invention  of  gunpowder,  could 


28  MORTMAIN 

safely  be  ignored— even  if  they  did  happen  to 
carry  on  their  occupation  in  certain  black  vaults 
that  yawned  upon  the  steps  of  the  street  and 
incidentally  held  up  that  edge  of  the  Pasha's 
garden.  But  he  learned  before  he  was  through 
with  them  that  an  ancient  and  honourable  guild 
enjoys  powers  of  resistance,  quite  independent 
of  the  transitory  human  inventions  which  may 
happen  to  have  assisted  at  its  birth.  For  the 
Arrow  Makers  delicately  intimated  that  the 
Pasha's  title  to  a  large  part  of  his  estate  rested 
chiefly  on  their  own  complaisance — which 
might  well  take  on  a  different  colour  when  it 
became  a  question  of  gyaours.  It  was  clear 
that  the  Pasha  had  not  owned  the  earth  under 
his  garden,  down  to  the  buffalo  who  holds  the 
world  on  his  back.  What,  therefore,  was  to 
prevent  the  Arrow  Makers,  in  the  natural  ex 
pansion  of  trade,  from  building  as  many  stories 
as  they  pleased  on  their  own  foundations  ?  So, 
for  the  sake  of  future  peace,  it  became  neces 
sary  to  buy  the  air  over  the  Arrow  Makers' 
heads,  right  up  to  the  moon ! 

When  these  transactions  were  at  last  brought 
to  a  close  Mr.  Bisbee  breathed  again.  Never 
had  his  energy  so  spent  itself  in  vain  against 
forces  as  invulnerable  as  the  shadow  of  the 
minaret  that  swept  daily  across  his  premises. 
But  if  his  exasperated  bewilderment  gave  him 


MORTMAIN  29 

a  new  view  of  the  magnitude  of  the  missionary 
enterprise,  it  also  sharpened  his  zeal.  He 
thanked  God  that  he  was  now  master  on  his 
own  ground,  and  that  the  cry  of  the  muezzin 
should  presently  be  answered  by  the  sound  of 
Christian  bells.  He  likewise  went  so  far  in  dis 
loyalty  toward  his  native  land  as  to  be  secretly 
thankful  that  he  had  neither  eight-hour  laws 
nor  labour  unions  to  cope  with. 

But  it  was  not  long  before  he  would  have 
taken  a  walking  delegate  to  his  bosom  as  a 
brother.  For  the  poor  young  man,  alas,  reared 
as  he  had  been  in  Calvinistic  ideas  of  bribery 
and  corruption,  had  yet  to  acquire  the  art  of 
adjusting  himself  to  the  surveillance  of  an  alien 

police.    And  as  for  his  workmen !    To  the 

eye  of  their  unhappy  employer  they  appeared 
far  fitter  to  destroy  the  house  of  God  than  to 
build  it.  Not  only  were  they  as  unlikely  a  band 
of  ruffians  as  ever  lay  in  ambush,  but  the  con 
fusion  of  Babel  reigned  amongst  them.  Mr. 
Bisbee,  painfully  picking  up  what  he  under 
stood  to  be  the  language  of  the  country,  dis 
covered  that  there  were  apparently  as  many 
languages  of  the  country  as  there  were  inhabi 
tants.  He  also  discovered  that  with  each  lan 
guage  went  a  different  set  of  habits  and 
prejudices,  the  most  obstinate  of  which  were  of 
a  religious  nature.  This  was  to  the  practical 


30  MORTMAIN 

young  missionary  a  ridiculous  and  intolerable 
state  of  affairs.  If  the  benighted  creatures 
must  go  whoring  after  strange  gods,  why  could 
they  not  do  it  like  sensible  beings  on  the  first 
day  of  the  week,  instead  of  dropping  inconti 
nently  to  their  knees  at  all  hours  of  the  day, 
leaving  him  short-handed  when  he  most  needed 
them? 

The  worst  of  it,  though,  was  a  mysterious 
but  inexpugnable  tradition  that  bound  down 
each  of  them  to  one  kind  of  work  alone.  There 
was  to  him  nothing  against  nature  in  set 
ting  an  Armenian  to  drive  a  donkey  or  a  son 
of  Iran  to  dig.  But  he  began  to  understand 
how  inalterable  were  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians  when  he  attempted  that  feat.  In  fact 
the  sole  point  in  which  the  men  were  at  one  was 
that  they  were  all  as  deliberate  as  oxen  and  as 
wedded  to  the  ways  of  their  ancestors.  Their 
energetic  employer  would  sometimes  snatch  a 
tool  from  one  of  them,  in  order  to  show  how  the 
thing  should  be  done.  But  they  were  insensible 
to  the  force  of  example.  Such  exhibitions  were 
for  them  merely  examples  of  Western  eccen 
tricity — to  be  gravely  applauded,  like  the  strug 
gles  of  a  child  with  the  laws  of  gravitation,  or 
to  be  condoned  with  private  tappings  of  the 
brow,  but  not  to  be  emulated.  When  searched, 
haltingly,  for  reasons,  they  would  answer:  "It 


MORTMAIN  31 

may  be  that  Americans  do  so.  Let  them,  and 
God  be  with  them.  As  for  us,  we  do  so."  And 
there  was  an  end  of  the  matter. 

There  was  not  altogether  an  end  of  the  mat 
ter,  however,  for  there  was  always  something 
new.  The  men  were  as  incalculable  as  children 
— they  had  a  way,  indeed,  of  addressing  their 
square- jawed  young  master,  at  moments  of  ex 
postulation,  as  their  mother  and  their  father — 
and  as  full  of  superstitions  as  a  pomegranate 
of  seeds.  One  day,  for  instance,  after  digging 
had  begun,  they  uncovered  in  one  corner  of  the 
grounds  a  lot  of  skeletons.  Whereupon  they 
all  ran  gibbering  away  and  everything  came  at 
once  to  a  standstill.  It  was  only  when  a  Jew 
happened  along  and  obligingly  offered  to  re 
move  the  bones  that  the  men  consented  to  be 
appeased. 

It  was  not  very  clear  to  Mr.  Bisbee  what  the 
Jew  wanted  of  a  lot  of  skulls,  or  how  the  rude 
coins  that  rattled  about  in  each  one,  and  the 
earthenware  lamps  beside  them,  would  pay  for 
the  trouble  of  carrying  them  away.  He  had 
read  at  college,  of  course,  that  it  was  once  the 
fashion  to  put  a  coin  into  the  mouth  of  a  dead 
man,  to  pay  his  passage  to  the  other  world; 
but  he  was  less  interested  in  such  heathenish 
customs  than  in  planting  the  seed  of  the  Word. 
And  how  the  Word  was  to  be  planted  by  such 


32  MORTMAIN 

unsanctified  hands,  and  in  such  a  soil,  was  often 
more  than  he  could  see.  It  was  a  mystery,  for 
that  matter,  that  the  Pasha  had  ever  succeeded 
in  raising  so  much  as  a  single  heathen  rose. 
The  whole  subsoil  of  the  garden  was  one  mass 
of  rubble,  made  up  of  bits  of  marble,  of  pot 
tery,  of  broken  glass  and  crusted  metal,  all  so 
fine  and  dry  that  it  would  run  like  sand.  And 
a  faint  strange  odour  came  up  from  it,  which 
was  very  unpleasant  to  Mr.  Bisbee  and  made 
him  desperately  homesick  for  the  sweet  tilth 
of  his  native  State. 

It  appeared,  however,  that  others  did  not 
look  upon  the  matter  quite  as  he  did.  Which, 
indeed,  became  the  next  source  of  his  troubles. 
After  the  Jew  had  carried  away  the  bones  and 
the  coins  and  the  lamps,  and  even  the  big  tiles 
forming  the  curious  triangular  concavities  in 
which  these  objects  had  lain,  a  Greek  turned 
up  who  evinced  as  much  curiosity  in  the  pro 
ceedings  as  if  they  had  been  any  of  his  busi 
ness.  He  was  the  more  perplexing  to  deal  with 
because  he  was  a  gentlemanly  sort  of  fellow — 
he  called  himself  a  member  of  the  Hellenic 
Archaeological  Syllogos,  whatever  that  might 
be — and  knew  English  very  well.  The  Rever 
end  Horatio  had  never  imagined  that  a  Greek 
could  seem  so  civilized. 

This  Greek  was  particularly  interested  to 


MORTMAIN  33 

learn  the  nature  of  the  building  to  be  erected 
— Mr.  Bisbee  was  a  little  at  a  loss  to  answer  his 
question  as  to  its  architecture — for  he  said  that 
the  place  had  once  been  the  site  of  a  Byzantine 
monastery,  and  before  that  of  a  pagan  temple 
— to  Aphrodite.    He  also  explained  the  nature 
of  the  soil,  as  being  due  not  only  to  the  natural 
effect  of  time  but  to  the  fact  that  the  city  had 
been  so  often  sacked — by  the  Persians  in  the 
fifth  century  before  Christ,  by  Septimius  Sev- 
erus  in  the  second  century  after,  by  the  Vene 
tians  and  Franks  of  the  fourth  crusade,  and  by 
the  Turks  in  1453.     He  nevertheless  declared 
himself  as  certain  that  priceless  relics  of  an 
tiquity  still  remained  to  be  discovered — witness 
the  pre-Christian  necropolis  that  had  lain  un 
disturbed  at  a  higher  level  than  centuries  of 
subsequent  building  and  rebuilding.    Although 
of  the  treasures  for  which  the  emperors  had 
ransacked  Italy  and  Greece  so  many  had  been 
carried  away  or  destroyed,  a  great  many  must 
have  been  overlooked  or  buried,  particularly  in 
1453.    For  this  reason,  and  because  the  oppor 
tunity  was  so  unusual — since  the  government 
did  not  permit  excavation — he  begged  that  Mr. 
Bisbee  would  give  away  no  more  archseological 
finds  to  the  first  Jew  who  happened  to  ask  for 
them.     Every  spadeful  of  the  soil  of  a  city 
whose  walls  had  first  been  raised  by  Apollo  and 


34  MORTMAIN 

Poseidon,  and  which  had  kept  alive  the  Attic 
torch  for  the  kindling  of  the  Renaissance,  was 
precious — as  a  citizen  of  so  enlightened  a  coun 
try  as  the  one  to  which  Mr.  Bisbee  belonged 
was  of  course  the  first  to  appreciate.  And  the 
Syllogos  would  be  only  too  happy  to  accept  the 
custody  of  whatever  might  be  found  in  the 
course  of  digging. 

It  is  the  historian's  pleasure  to  record  that 
Mr.  Bisbee  eventually  became  sensible,  in  his 
degree,  to  the  strange  eloquence  of  antiquity, 
which  may  speak  to  men  more  loudly  than  liv 
ing  tongues.  But  at  the  time  of  our  tale  he  was 
far  from  agreeing  with  his  learned  and  some 
what  prolix  friend  as  to  the  value  of  the  soil 
of  Constantinople.  It  struck  him,  on  the  con 
trary,  that  soil  so  utterly  valueless  he  had 
never  seen.  And  he  was  less  impressed  by  the 
antiquity  of  the  town  than  by  the  fact  that  it 
was  an  extremely  dirty  and  disagreeable  place, 
inhabited  by  persons  primitive,  godless  and 
discouraging  to  the  last  degree,  whom  the  Most 
High  in  his  providence  had  mysteriously  ap 
pointed  for  the  trying  of  happier  nations.  Why 
then  should  he  spend  his  valuable  time,  already 
so  trespassed  upon,  in  collecting  the  relics  of 
a  heathen  past — especially  when  his  business 
was  the  building  of  a  house  to  the  confusion  of 
the  heathen?  So  his  relations  with  the  repre- 


MORTMAIN  35 

sentative  of  the  Hellenic  Archaeological  Syllo- 
gos  became  a  trifle  strained. 

It  is  true  enough  that  certain  fragments  of 
iridescent  glass,  certain  bits  of  marble  deco 
rated  with  patterns  of  grape-vine,  certain 
ancient  bricks  stamped  with  the  names  of 
emperors,  certain  battered  capitals  intricately 
carved  with  birds  and  basket-work,  to  say  noth 
ing  of  a  few  odd  coins,  a  little  broken  pottery, 
and  a  miscellaneous  collection  of  limbs  in  human 
semblance,  passed  into  the  possession  of  that 
erudite  body.  But  differences  of  opinion  as  to 
these  specimens  were  not  rare.  And  there  was 
in  particular  a  matter  of  a  marble  statue, 
almost  perfectly  preserved,  with  so  indecent  a 
lack  of  raiment  that  the  Reverend  Horatio  ac 
cepted  the  judgment  of  heaven  when  the  men 
managed  to  smash  the  thing  in  trying  to  haul 
it  out.  He  accordingly  allowed  them  to  break 
it  up  for  lime,  for  whose  uses  they  apparently 
had  knowledge  of  the  value  of  marble.  Which 
became  the  cause  of  open  rupture  between  him 
self  and  the  Greek.  When  this  polite  gentle 
man  found  what  had  happened  he  quite  lost  his 
head  and  said  unpardonable  things  about  bar 
barians  to  whom  the  city  of  Apollo  and  Posei 
don  was  nothing:  even  Turks  were  better,  for 
they  at  least  existed  in  1453,  and  they  had  some 
colour  of  religion  for  destroying  statues. 


36  MORTMAIN 

The  honest  Bisbee,  for  his  part,  was  free  to 
admit  that  Apollo  and  Poseidon  were  very  little 
to  him.  For  the  rest,  having  a  Christian  ex 
ample  to  set,  he  refrained  from  exposing  his 
own  views  as  to  barbarians.  But  he  ordered 
the  Croat  at  the  gate  to  exclude,  thereafter,  all 
persons  unconnected  with  the  work. 

II 

On  the  day  after  this  incident,  Mr.  Bisbee 
was  not  surprised  to  learn  that  speech  was  de 
sired  of  him.  He  thought  it  probable  that  the 
Greek  would  object  to  being  turned  away,  and 
possible  that  he  might  have  a  few  apologies  to 
make.  So,  not  without  an  inward  sense  of 
magnanimity,  the  young  man  consented  to  an 
interview.  He  accordingly  did  feel  a  certain 
surprise  when  two  persons  waited  upon  him — 
the  sole  resemblance  of  either  of  whom  to  the 
member  of  the  Hellenic  Archaeological  Syllogos 
was  that  the  elder  had  been  almost  equally  in 
evidence  from  the  beginning  of  the  work. 

This  was  an  Armenian  of  some  age,  rather 
bent  and  shabby,  who  had  attracted  Mr.  Bis- 
bee's  attention  by  reason  of  the  excessive  lei 
sure  he  seemed  to  enjoy  and  the  excessive 
politeness,  bordering  upon  the  obsequious,  with 
which  he  never  failed  to  salute  the  director  of 
the  works.  These  characteristics,  and  a  cer- 


MORTMAIN  37 

tain  furtiveness  of  eye,  had  not  particularly 
commended  him  to  that  straightforward  gen 
tleman,  who  sometimes  found  time  to  wonder 
why  a  man  apparently  in  need  of  work  didn't 
go  out  and  hunt  for  it  instead  of  watching  a 
lot  of  lazy  lummocks  dig  a  hole  in  the  ground. 
So  the  missionary  felt  small  pleasure  in  the 
honour  now  done  him.  And,  although  the  man 
had  interfered  with  his  operations  as  little 
as  a  silent  spectator  could,  he  made  up  his 
mind  to  deny  any  request  for  the  lifting  of  the 
embargo. 

The  Armenian  did  not,  however,  make  any 
such  request.  He  merely  introduced  his  son,  a 
small  dark  youth  with  a  flat  head  and  a  quan 
tity  of  black  fuzz  about  his  face,  and  the  two 
proceeded  to  inform  themselves  with  great 
minuteness  as  to  the  state  of  Mr.  Bisbee's 
health  and  that  of  his  entire  acquaintance.  The 
missionary,  who  abominated  roundabout  ways, 
was  not  mollified  by  this  courtesy.  It  came  to 
him,  as  he  recollected  how  many  of  his  valuable 
minutes  had  been  wasted  in  one  way  and  an 
other,  that  to  love  one's  neighbour  as  one's  self 
was  more  of  an  affair  in  Constantinople  than  it 
used  to  be  in  Iowa.  And  while  there  was  little 
to  choose  between  his  present  neighbours — 
whose  mutual  rivalries  and  pretensions  often 
amused  him,  since  they  were  all  poor  heathen 


38  MORTMAIN 

together— it  likewise  came  to  him  that  his  Ar 
menian  neighbour  was  perhaps  the  hardest  of 
all  to  love.  This  should  not  have  been  the  case 
with  regard  to  a  people  supposed  to  have  special 
claims  upon  a  lover  of  liberty — apart  from  the 
fact  that  among  the  heterogeneous  driftwood 
of  the  empire  they  furnished  the  timber  most 
apt  for  conversion.  But  there  was  something 
about  these  two — about  their  eyes,  about  their 
strong  Semitic  noses,  about  the  very  way  in 
which  they  sat  on  the  edges  of  their  chairs  with 
hands  folded  and  feet  tucked  under  the  rounds 
— something  unctuous  and  exotic  and  incurably 
Oriental,  that  aroused  in  their  host,  in  spite  of 
himself,  that  race  feeling  which  slumbers  so 
near  the  surface  of  civilization.  Upon  such  a 
mood  therefore  did  the  younger  at  last  so  far 
approach  his  point  as  to  throw  out,  in  tolerable 
enough  English: 

"Mr.  Bisbee" — he  pronounced  it  Muster  Bus- 
bee,  giving  full  value  to  the  finel  e's — "my 
father  has  something  to  tell  you.  He  says :  will 
you  give  him  your  word?" 

"Give  him  my  word?"  inquired  the  mission 
ary,  not  a  little  puzzled.  "What  do  you  mean?" 

"I  mean,"  answered  the  youth,  "that  you  will 
not  say  what  he  tells." 

"Why,  I  will  of  course  keep  any  confidence 
you  may  wish  to  make,"  said  Mr.  Bisbee  rather 


MORTMAIN  39 

stiffly.  "But  I  must  ask  you,"  he  added,  "to 
Ibe  as  brief  as  possible." 

Had  the  young  Armenian  been  able  to  read 
his  host's  state  of  mind  he  might  have  taken 
nore  pains  to  suit  his  own  action  to  that  gentle- 
nan's  word.  As  it  was,  being  absorbed  by  what 
'.  le  had  to  say,  he  first  gazed  steadfastly  at  Mr. 
Bisbee  for  some  moments  and  then  uttered  with 
great  deliberation: 

"Mr.  Bisbee,  our  family  is  very  ancient." 
After  which  announcement  he  paused  again  be 
fore  going  on  to  add :  "The  Turks  are  now  our 
masters,  but  we  have  lived  here  longer  than  they. 
They  are  here  only  from  1453.  We  are  here 
from  the  time  of  Leo  the  Fifth,  the  Emperor." 

If  this  name  touched  no  responsive  chord  in 
the  memory  of  a  gentleman  who  happened  to 
be  better  acquainted  with  the  rulers  of  Israel 
than  with  those  of  the  Eastern  Empire,  the 
date  which  the  young  man  mentioned,  and  the 
air  with  which  he  mentioned  it,  quickened  in 
Mr.  Bisbee  a  dormant  irritation.  It  seemed  to 
him  that  these  people  had  1453  on  the  brain. 
One  would  think  that  nothing  had  happened 
since  then !  Apparently  for  them,  indeed,  noth 
ing  had.  They  lived  one  and  all  in  old,  dead, 
forgotten,  exploded  things.  He  could  hardly 
conceal  a  contempt  which  suddenly  swelled  up 
in  him. 


40  MORTMAIN 

"That  is  very  interesting,"  he  said,  "but  I 
hardly  have  time  to  hear  the  story  of  your 
family  this  morning." 

The  youth  was  unperturbed. 

"Mr.  Bisbee,"  he  went  on,  "because  we  art; 
very  old  we  know  many  things.  We  knovp 
things  about  this  land  you  have  bought." 

The  remark  was  hardly  the  one  to  stem  Mr. 
Bisbee's  ebbing  patience. 

"So  did  a  Greek  gentleman  who  spent  some 
days  here,"  he  observed  with  a  touch  of  as 
perity.  "I  heard  all  about  it  from  him." 

The  youth  smiled  a  little  and  exchanged  a 
guttural  word  with  his  father.  Then  he  said: 

"We  know  more  than  the  Greek." 

If  this  declaration  was  even  less  happily  con 
ceived  than  the  preceding,  its  effect  was  tem 
pered  for  Mr.  Bisbee  by  the  impressiveness 
with  which  it  was  uttered.  He  scarcely  knew 
whether  to  be  irritated  or  amused  at  the  air  of 
mystery  which  his  interlocutor  chose  to  main 
tain. 

"Well,"  he  inquired,  "what  do  you  know?" 

The  youth  took  another  of  his  pauses  before 
answering. 

"We  know  this" — and  glancing  over  his 
shoulder  at  the  door  he  went  on  in  a  lowered 
voice :  "When  you  have  dug  fifteen  feet,  twenty 
feet,  perhaps  twenty-five  feet,  you  will  find  an 


MORTMAIN  41 

iron  door.  When  you  open  the  iron  door  you 
will  find  steps.  When  you  go  down  the  steps 
you  will  find  a  passage,  leading  south  and 
west." 

Again  there  was  a  silence.  In  it  Mr.  Bisbee 
looked  from  one  to  the  other  of  his  visitors, 
whose  eyes  were  upon  him  with  an  unpleasant 
fixity  of  gaze. 

"You  do  seem  to  know  a  good  deal!"  he  ex 
claimed  with  a  smile.  "Where  did  you  happen 
to  pick  up  this  interesting  information?" 

"My  father  told  me,"  answered  the  youth 
ingenuously.  "His  father  told  him,  and  his 
father  told  him,  and  his  father  told  him — back 
to  1453." 

That  was  enough  for  the  gentleman  from 
Iowa.  He  rose  and  pushed  away  his  chair: 

"You  are  very  entertaining,  young  man,  but 
unfortunately  I  have  many  calls  upon  my  time. 
If  you  will  kindly  excuse  me " 

The  two,  who  remained  seated,  exchanged  a 
startled  look. 

"Mr.  Bisbee,  please!"  begged  the  younger. 
"I  do  not  speak  well.  I  try  to  tell  you.  This 
passage  went  underground  from  a  monastery 
which  was  once  here  to  the  Palace  of  the  Sen 
ate.  And  in  it  you  will  find  many  things.  They 
were  put  there  by  the  Emperor  Constantine,  in 
1453,  to  keep  them  from  the  Turks.  Our  an- 


42  MORTMAIN 

cestor  helped.  The  Emperor  and  the  others 
were  killed." 

This  disconnected  speech,  uttered 'more  rap 
idly  than  the  rest,  and  with  a  curious  excite 
ment  about  it,  puzzled  Mr.  Bisbee  not  a  little. 

"Well,  what  of  that?"  he  demanded. 

The  Armenian  bent  forward : 

"We  only  ask:   give  us  half!" 

The  fellow  was  so  comical,  with  his  black  fuzz 
and  his  melodramatic  air  and  his  tucked-up 
legs,  that  Bisbee  burst  out  laughing. 

"Oh,  you  mean  buried  treasure  ?  The  Arabian 
Nights,  and  the  Spanish  Armadas,  and  Captain 
Kidd,  and  that  sort  of  thing !  Well,  I  don't  know 
what  your  game  is,  but  I  guess  I  don't  go  in  on 
it.  Good-bye." 

And  he  made  for  the  door.  But  the  older 
Armenian,  whose  strange  eyes  looked  stranger 
than  ever,  silently  reached  out  and  caught  him 
by  the  coat,  while  the  younger  darted  in  front 
of  him. 

"Mr.  Bisbee!  I  beg  you!"  he  cried,  clasping 
his  hands  before  his  face.  "It  is  so !  We  know ! 
For  four  hundred  years  we  have  watched  this 
place,  waiting,  waiting,  the  father  telling  the 
son,  the  son  telling  his  son!  It  has  belonged 
always  to  the  Turks,  who  did  not  know.  And  they 
have  not  treated  us  as  the  emperors  did.  They 
have  spit  upon  us,  they  have  robbed  us,  they 


MORTMAIN  43 

have  massacred  us — there  is  nothing  they  have 
not  done  to  us !  But  we  have  waited !  For  four 
hundred  years  we  have  watched  and  waited! 
And  now  at  last  this  place  has  come  again  into 
the  hands  of  Christians — and  of  the  Christians 
who  have  been  our  only  friends!  So  we  tell 
you!  You  might  not  find  it,  but  we  tell  you! 
And  because  we  tell  you,  only  give  us  half! 
Ah,  you  have  no  idea!  There  is  gold — gold — 
gold!  There  are  jewels!  There  are  treasures 
of  the  church !  There  are  statues  of  the  Greeks ! 
There  are  things  kings  would  give  their  crowns 
to  have,  hidden  there  in  the  ground,  where  no 
one  knows.  You  will  be  rich — rich !  You  may 
go  home  and  be  a  prince  in  your  own  coun 
try!  But  only  give  a  half,  a  quarter,  a  tenth, 
to  us  who  have  told  you,  who  have  waited  four 
hundred  years — that  we  may  breathe  again, 
that  we  may  be  revenged  upon  our  enemies, 
that  we  may  live  somewhere  on  the  earth  in 
peace !" 

This  outburst  held  the  Reverend  Horatio  a 
moment  in  sheer  astonishment.  Then  the  ab 
surdity  of  it,  and  all  the  antagonisms  which  his 
two  visitors  called  into  consciousness,  broke 
down  his  long-tried  patience. 

"Go  to  somebody  else  with  your  poppycock !" 
he  cried  angrily.  "I  have  other  things  to  do 
than  to  listen  to  such  stuff !" 


44  MORTMAIN 

But  before  he  could  get  away  they  had  him 
each  by  a  hand,  kissing  it  and  mumbling  over 
it  as  they  dragged  themselves  after  him  on 
their  knees.  It  was  all  he  could  do  to  jerk  him 
self  loose.  And  when  he  finally  got  through  the 
door  the  youth  called  after  him  in  a  strangling 
voice : 

"Ah — our  inheritance You  will  take 

all!" 

III 

In  such  ways  did  the  young  missionary  learn 
that  between  the  conception  and  the  execution 
do  many  mountains  lie.  Being  square  of  chin 
and  spare  of  days  he  was  not  the  man  to  sit 
down  before  them.  Neither  was  he  subject  to 
those  revulsions  which  are  the  bane  of  the  more 
sensitively  organized.  But  the  experience  was 
the  more  trying  for  him  because  he  took  it  so 
seriously.  Where  another  might  have  found 
beguilement  in  a  world  other  than  his  own,  he 
could  only  see  a  world  to  be  turned  from  the 
error  of  its  way.  And  this  in  the  light  of  his 
adventures  seemed  to  consist  in  bondage  to  a 
dark  and  unregenerate  past.  The  dust  of 
crumbled  empires  in  which  he  worked,  with  its 
faint  strange  odour,  seemed  infected  with  a 
nameless  poison.  Somehow  it  always  made  him 
think  of  the  buried  statue  upon  which  he  had 


MORTMAIN  45 

come.  The  very  memory  of  its  shameless  white 
ness — so  strangely  untroubled,  yet  so  strangely 
troubling — diffused  a  corruption  of  the  grave; 
and  he  thanked  God  with  a  homesick  heart  for 
the  openness  and  airiness  of  his  native  land, 
and  its  good  clean  earth  uncrusted  by  all  these 
old  unwholesome  things. 

Nor  was  this  mood  in  any  wise  lightened  by 
the  continued  presence  of  the  old  Armenian.  It 
brought  home  to  the  missionary  again  and 
again,  with  an  intensity  which  often  drove  the 
good  man  to  his  knees,  his  physical  repulsion 
to  the  people  about  him.  Although  he  won 
dered,  however,  what  argument  had  availed  to 
soften  the  heart  of  the  Croat  at  the  gate,  he 
made  it  a  point  to  ignore  the  matter.  His  pride 
forbade  him  to  yield  so  far  to  the  promptings  of 
the  flesh.  And  his  spiritual  victory  was  the 
higher  for  a  more  impalpable  reason.  Little  as 
he  had  been  affected  by  the  rubbish  of  which 
the  two  had  made  such  a  mystery,  the  imputa 
tion  thrown  after  him  by  the  younger  left  him 
in  the  other's  presence  an  absurd  and  indefin 
able  embarrassment.  The  man  was  outwardly 
the  same  as  before.  He  saluted  Mr.  Bisbee  as 
respectfully  as  ever.  He  made  no  trouble.  He 
said  nothing.  He  merely  watched.  And  now 
that  Bisbee  knew  why  he  watched  he  could  feel 
a  contemptuous  amusement  about  it.  But,  at 


46  MORTMAIN 

the  same  time,  he  could  not  help  feeling  a  vague 
hostility  in  the  man.  He  could  not  help  feeling 
that  he,  too,  was  being  watched. 

And  then,  one  afternoon,  a  workman's  pick 
clanged  on  iron. 

The  sound  affected  Bisbee  more  curiously 
than  any  sound  had  ever  affected  him  before. 
There  was  no  reason  why  it  should  have  made 
him  start,  should  have  filled  him  with  a  rush  of 
unreasoning  anger  that  positively  left  him 
trembling.  The  men  were  always  hitting  one 
thing  and  another  as  they  worked  down 
through  the  debris  of  centuries  in  search  of 
bedrock.  Least  of  all  was  there  any  reason 
why  he  should  look  for  the  Armenian.  Yet  so 
he  did,  and  he  found  the  man's  eyes  upon  him 
with  an  expression  he  never  forgot.  But  the 
most  disconcerting  thing  of  all  was  that  the 
Armenian  immediately  turned  and  hurried 
from  the  grounds. 

Bisbee  was  infinitely  annoyed  with  himself. 
His  vexations  were  evidently  getting  on  his 
nerves;  he  hoped  they  were  not  affecting  his 
brain  as  well!  He  started  to  go  away,  when 
that  struck  him  as  being  another  sign  of  weak 
ness.  It  would  be  better  to  prove  his  own  idiocy 
by  finding  out  the  trivial  cause  of  it.  The  indif 
ference  of  the  men  showed  what  a  fool  he  was. 
The  only  thing  that  attracted  his  eye  among 


MORTMAIN  47 

them  was  the  minaret  shadow  lying  long  and 
dark  across  the  excavation. 

He  happened  to  notice  one  of  the  diggers  who 
was  on  his  knees  in  the  shadow,  working  at  the 
rubble  with  his  hands.  Bisbee  strolled  idly  in 
that  direction.  As  he  did  so  he  saw  the  man 
disengage  something  that  looked  like  a  big  ring. 
It  clanged  over  dully  against  a  sort  of  metal 
plate  to  which  it  seemed  to  be  fastened.  The 
recurrence  of  the  sound  brought  back  all  of 
Bisbee's  irritation — which  increased  when  the 
workman  suddenly  bent  over  and  kissed  the 
plate,  crossing  himself  as  he  did  so.  What  pos 
sible  relation  could  there  be  between  that  an 
cient  bit  of  metal,  buried  no  one  knew  since 
when,  and  this  ignorant  digger  of  ditches  ?  Bis 
bee  felt  again  all  the  tangle  of  nameless  things 
against  which  he  had  to  contend,  and  the  hate 
ful  guidance  in  living  things  of  hands  long 
dead.  He  stepped  down  into  the  excavation  and 
ordered  the  man,  sharply,  to  go  on  with  his 
work.  Then  he  saw  what  had  called  forth  the 
superstitious  demonstration.  It  was  the  out 
line  of  a  cross,  raised  in  relief  upon  the  surface 
of  the  plate.  And  presently  a  second  cross  and 
a  second  ring  came  into  view,  divided  from  the 
others  by  a  fine  seam  in  the  metal. 

So  at  last  was  laid  bare  a  great  metal  door  of 
two  leaves,  set  horizontally  into  heavy  masonry. 


48  MORTMAIN 

To  each  leaf  was  attached  a  ring,  and  above 
each  ring  was  a  Greek  cross.  And  as  Bisbee 
stood  there  among  his  outlandish  tribesmen,  his 
nostrils  full  of  the  faint  strange  odour  of  the 
excavation,  with  the  minaret  soaring  above  his 
eyes,  and  below  them  this  long-buried  gateway 
that  bore  the  symbol  of  his  own  faith,  an  unac 
countable  rage  possessed  him.  He  knew  that 
he  was  making  a  fool  of  himself,  but  he  sud 
denly  leaned  over  and  pulled  at  one  of  the  rings 
with  all  his  strength.  He  might  have  wrenched 
his  arm  out  of  its  socket,  for  all  the  door  would 
give.  He  let  the  ring  drop.  It  struck  out  a 
clang  hollower  and  louder  than  before. 

"A  cistern,"  remarked  one  of  the  men. 

Of  course !  What  else  should  it  be,  in  a  town 
to  which  emperors  had  cunningly  brought 
water  from  afar?  Then  there  were  two  doors, 
not  one.  Moreover — and  Bisbee  knelt  to  brush 
away  the  dust  with  his  hand — they  could  not 
possibly  be  of  iron.  Iron  would  have  rusted 
long  ago,  while  this  metal  was  merely  soiled  and 
scarred  by  the  centuries  that  had  lain  upon  it. 

It  must  be  bronze.  After  all !  He  rose,  more 

at  his  ease.  But  as  he  did  so  his  eyes  met  those 
of  the  two  Armenians.  The  old  man  had  re 
turned  with  his  son,  whom  Bisbee  had  not  seen 
since  the  day  of  that  ridiculous  interview,  and 
both  were  watching  him  with  something  like  a 


MORTMAIN  49 

smile.  Bisbee  could  have  killed  them.  And  yet, 
for  the  life  of  him,  he  could  not  help  feeling  a 
vague  embarrassment. 

"We  seem  to  have  found  a  cistern,"  he  re 
marked  to  the  younger  with  a  bow. 

"I  see,"  replied  the  youth  politely. 

"I  think  we  might  as  well  open  it  before  we 
go  on  with  the  rest  of  the  work,"  continued  Bis 
bee  awkwardly,  deferring  to  the  two  in  spite 
of  himself.  "What  do  you  say?" 

The  youth  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"That  is  for  you  to  decide.    It  is  not  ours  1" 

Bisbee  felt  himself  going  red. 

"We  might  as  well — and  see " 

That  operation,  however,  proved  harder  than 
it  looked.  The  men  wasted  an  hour  trying  to 
raise  the  upper  leaf  by  its  ring  or  to  pry  it  open 
with  their  crowbars.  They  finally  had  to  attack 
the  surrounding  masonry,  in  order  to  wrench 
the  pivots  out  of  the  stone  in  which  they  were 
embedded.  Even  then  it  was  sunset  before  they 
effected  the  beginning  of  an  entrance.  One  of 
the  men  thrust  a  stone  through  the  opening. 
Almost  instantly  there  was  a  dull  concussion 
within. 

"There  is  no  water,"  he  said.  "They  have 
filled  it  up.  It  will  save  us  the  trouble!" 

Bisbee  turned  to  see  how  the  Armenians 
would  take  it.  A  strange  look  passed  between 


50  MORTMAIN 

them.  A  moment  later  they  gave  him  some 
thing  of  it,  with  something  more  of  an  in 
scrutable  smile.  This  silent  passage  affected 
him  like  the  clang  of  the  doors.  The  sense 
that  it  was  lost  upon  the  rest  deepened  a  feeling 
of  mystery  which  he  tried  in  vain  to  shake  off. 
In  some  way  or  other  it  was  as  if  some  porten 
tous  issue  hung  upon  the  opening  of  those  great 
bronze  gates  that  were  so  slow  to  give  up  their 
secret.  And  as  he  stood  there,  waiting,  face  to 
face  with  the  two,  while  the  men  struggled  with 
the  stubborn  masonry,  the  effort  of  containing 
himself  became  almost  intolerable. 

At  last,  however,  the  gates  were  jacked  far 
enough  to  one  side  to  reveal  a  black  aperture 
below  them.  Out  of  it  a  sudden  chill  came 
up  into  the  warm  twilight,  and  a  sharp  gust — 
sharper  than  he  had  known  before — of  the 
odour  Bisbee  knew  so  well.  Then  he  heard  some 
one  say: 

"They  have  not  filled  it  up,  either.  There  are 
steps." 

IV 

The  solid,  the  comfortable  earth  opened 
under  Bisbee's  feet  into  labyrinths  as  dark  and 
incredible  as  Avernus.  For  in  the  bottom  of  his 
patriotic  heart  he  had  always  felt  that  the 
world  really  began  in  1492.  To  descend,  with 


MORTMAIN.  51 

two  strangers  of  whom  he  knew  nothing  but 
their  fantastic  story,  a  stairway  which  must 
already  have  been  buried  thirty-nine  years 
when  Columbus  discovered  America,  was  to 
enter  bodily  that  dim  Saturnine  age  in  whose 
existence  he  had  never  really  believed.  It  was 
an  adventure  far  more  moving  than  any  mere 
quest  for  buried  treasure. 

They  waited  till  the  workmen  had  gone  away 
for  the  night,  and  they  posted  the  protesting 
Croat  on  guard  at  the  mouth  of  the  hole. 
Bisbee  let  the  Armenians  go  first.  It  was  his 
acknowledgment  of  his  earlier  hastiness.  The 
steps  were  considerably  worn,  and  they  were 
almost  obliterated  by  a  fine  earth  which  had 
somehow  sifted  through  to  them.  But  with 
the  aid  of  candles — of  the  kind  that  you  buy 
like  a  ball  of  twine  and  unroll  as  you  need — 
and  of  stout  sticks,  they  afforded  sufficient  foot 
hold. 

The  younger  Armenian,  who  led  the  way,  was 
the  first  to  make  a  discovery. 

"The  steps  stop,"  he  said,  after  they  had  de 
scended  fifteen  or  twenty  feet,  "and  the  pas 
sage  turns  to  the  right." 

At  this  the  other  halted  and  gave  Bisbee  a 
look.  If  the  passage  went  to  the  right  it  also 
went  toward  the  south!  As  it  happened,  how 
ever,  the  youth  was  mistaken.  The  steps  did 


52  MORTMAIN 

not  stop.  They  merely  paused  at  a  small  plat 
form  from  which  they  dropped  at  right  angles 
to  the  first  flight  into  a  great  space  of  dark 
ness  that  opened  out  below.  It  made  itself  felt 
rather  than  seen.  But  a  little  reconnoitring 
with  sticks  confirmed  the  fact  that  the  left- 
hand  wall  turned  away  from  the  landing  and 
disappeared.  And  this  discovery  gave  the  ex 
pedition  a  new  element  of  mystery.  Bisbee 
never  forgot  the  impression  of  it — the  impene 
trable  chasm  of  darkness  with  its  mortal  chill 
and  its  strange  odour  and  its  hollow  resonances, 
from  which  the  three  tapers  reclaimed  but  the 
pallor  of  hands  and  faces  and  a  few  dim  lines 
of  masonry. 

That  the  discovery  was  not  particularly  wel 
come  to  the  Armenians  was  evident  from  the 
low  words  they  exchanged  and  the  hesitating 
way  in  which  they  felt  about  with  their  sticks. 
Bisbee,  therefore,  after  a  last  look  to  the  mouth 
of  the  hole — where  the  red  of  a  cigarette  glowed 
and  waned  in  the  darkness  and  an  ancient  star 
looked  in  (for  the  first  time  in  how  long!) — 
Bisbee  took  the  lead  in  the  second  stage  of  the 
descent. 

It  proved  far  more  ticklish  than  the  first. 
Not  only  were  the  steps  open  on  one  side  to  an 
unknown  abyss,  but  the  wall  on  the  other  grew 
slimy  to  the  touch  and  the  fine  detritus  under- 


MORTMAIN  53 

foot  turned  to  a  thin  slippery  mud.  Then  the 
sepulchral  reverberations  to  which  their  prog 
ress  gave  rise  could  not  but  try  the  nerves. 
And  even  the  matter-of-fact  Bisbee  started 
when,  at  a  touch  from  the  Armenian  behind 
him,  he  caught  sight  of  a  ghostly  phantom  hov 
ering  in  the  darkness  not  far  away.  It  took  him 
a  full  minute  of  staring,  while  unwonted  sensa 
tions  played  about  the  roots  of  his  hair,  to 
make  out  that  the  thing  must  be  a  marble  pil 
lar.  After  that,  however,  the  descent  became 
easier.  A  pit  with  pillars  in  it  could  not  be 
bottomless. 

So  at  last  the  three  crawled  down  to  a  second 
level — if  a  floor  so  muddy  and  uneven  deserved 
the  name.  The  moisture  dripping  from  the 
walls  had  collected  into  pools  that  gave  out  por 
tentous  splashes  under  the  groping  of  the  sticks. 
It  took  but  little  of  their  blind-man's  exploring, 
however,  to  determine  that  this  was  much 
larger  than  the  platform  where  they  had  halted 
before.  Moreover  it  was  enclosed  by  walls,  and 
through  it  ran  two  rows  of  marble  columns. 
Looming  out  of  the  darkness  in  which  their 
tops  were  lost,  they  had  an  indescribably  eerie 
effect  in  the  deadly  cold  and  silence. 

The  sense  of  mystery  was  to  Bisbee  so  much 
keener  than  any  other  that  he  wondered  a  little 
at  his  companions.  They  wandered  about,  busy 


54  MORTMAIN 

with  stick  and  taper,  making  strange  reflections 
and  rousing  strange  echoes  in  the  hollow  place. 
And  presently  the  younger  bent  over  with  an 
exclamation  to  examine  some  scattered  objects 
at  his  feet.  Then  picking  up  one  of  them  with 
a  laugh  he  handed  it  to  his  father,  who  in  turn 
showed  it  to  Bisbee.  The  thing  was  a  skull, 
dark  and  glistening  from  the  moisture  in  which 
it  had  lain. 

"He  was  less  patient  than  we !"  remarked  the 
old  man. 

Bisbee  suddenly  reached  out  and  took  the 
skull  into  his  own  hands.  Nothing  had  ever 
given  him  so  extraordinary  a  sense  of  the 
actuality  of  the  past.  The  eyes  that  once  peered 
through  those  hollow  sockets  were  perhaps  the 
last,  before  to-night,  to  look  upon  this  secret 
place.  Whose  could  they  have  been  ?  How  did 
he  come  here?  Did  he  hear  the  earth  fall  on 
the  bronze  gates  that  shut  him  in  from  the 
lighted  air?  Had  there  reached  him  any  tre 
mor  of  that  greater  fall,  when,  after  the  fury 
of  siege  and  sack,  the  ruins  of  an  empire  oblit 
erated  his  hiding  place?  With  questions  such 
as  these,  which  rise  so  easily  to  the  surface  of 
imagination  but  which  had  never  happened  to 
enter  the  mind  of  the  missionary,  there  also 
came  a  new  impression  of  the  ancient  things 
which  had  possessed  so  curious  a  property  of 


MORTMAIN  55 

arousing  his  resentment.  The  memory  of  them 
gave  him  now  a  sense  of  the  continuity  of  life 
such  as  could  scarcely  have  come  to  him  in  his 
own  land — and  of  its  immense  age,  and  of  its 
immense  waste,  and  of  its  immense  endurance. 
Never  again,  he  felt,  could  this  city  in  which  he 
had  chosen  to  live  and  die  seem  to  him  merely 
dirty  and  disagreeable.  Nor  could  its  people 
seem  to  him  merely  unsympathetic  or  prepos 
terous.  Were  there  not,  after  all,  reasons  why 
they  should  be  as  they  were?  There  came  to 
him  then  and  there,  with  his  first  inkling  of  the 
reality  of  other  existences,  a  strange  vision  of 
the  dead  hands  that  move  in  men's  lives, 
ordering  their  ways  in  spite  of  them  to  hidden 
ends. 

When  Bisbee  at  last  put  down  the  skull  he 
discovered  that  he  was  alone.  The  other  two 
tapers  had  disappeared,  and  there  was  nothing 
to  break  the  unearthly  stillness  of  the  place. 
In  the  deeper  darkness  that  had  closed  in 
upon  him  he  could  see  nothing  but  the 
ghost  of  a  pillar.  He  groped  his  way  to  the 
nearest  wall  and  felt  along  it  with  his  stick. 
The  stick  suddenly  gave  under  his  hand.  Low 
ering  his  candle  to  reconnoitre  he  discovered  a 
narrow  archway  that  rose  not  more  than  three 
feet  above  the  ground.  He  crouched  to  look  in. 
Far  away,  and  twinkling  like  stars  above  his 


56  MORTMAIN 

head,  two  faint  lights  pierced  the  darkness.  A 
moment  later  he  dropped  into  a  brick  tunnel,  a 
little  higher  than  his  head,  that  inclined  gently 
upward.  And  with  a  sudden  trembling  of  ex 
citement,  there  came  to  him  certain  old  words : 
Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasures  upon  earth, 
where  moth  and  rust  doth  corrupt  and  where 
thieves  break  through  and  steal.  .  .  . 

When  Bisbee  came  near  enough  to  his  com 
panions  to  see  more  than  their  candles  he  ex 
perienced  an  indescribable  clutch  at  the  heart. 
They  must  have  found  those  ancient  things 
that  their  ancestor,  nearly  five  hundred  years 
ago,  had  helped  to  carry  down  out  of  the  terror 
of  the  siege.  One  of  the  two  was  examining 
a  large  dim  object  in  front  of  him,  while  the 
other,  the  younger,  was  working  excitedly  with 
his  arm  and  his  stick  at  one  side  of  the  tunnel. 

Bisbee  stopped.  It  was  not  for  him  to  show 
the  eagerness  they  expected.  Then  the  old  man 
turned  and  saw  him.  A  strange  smile  crossed 
his  face.  He  beckoned,  and  pointed  to  the 
object  in  front  of  him.  And  as  Bisbee  went 
nearer  he  made  out  in  the  candle  light  a  torso 
of  marble.  Little  as  he  knew  of  sculpture  he 
could  see  it  bore  a  wonderful  human  resem 
blance.  It  made  him  think  of  the  statue  he  had 
let  his  men  break  up  for  lime. 

"Do  you  know  what  this  is?"  asked  the  old 


MORTMAIN  57 

man.  Bisbee  noticed  how  husky  was  his  voice. 
"I  will  tell  you.  It  is  the  wall  of  the  mosque 
behind  your  printing  house.  Digging  for  a 
foundation  they  discovered  this  tunnel — quite 
by  accident."  He  paused  a  minute,  looking 
from  Bisbee  to  his  son,  with  that  extraordinary 
smile  of  his.  And  what  he  said  next  was  in 
some  intangible  way  the  continuance  of  his 
pause:  "The  statues  they  broke  up  to  use  in 
building.  This  is  perhaps  a  Greek  god  who 
carries  on  his  shoulders  the  house  of  Moham 
med!" 

But  even  then  Bisbee  hardly  took  it  in.  What 
on  earth  was  the  man  talking  about?  Then  it 
gradually  came  to  him  that  he  was  face  to  face 
with  an  obstruction  in  the  passage.  It  was  a 
wall  which  started  obliquely  from  one  side  of 
the  tunnel,  turned  a  right  angle,  and  disap 
peared  on  the  other  side.  After  that  he  made 
out,  in  his  bewilderment,  that  the  wall  was  dis 
tinctly  lighter  than  the  ancient  brick  of  the 
tunnel,  and  ruggedly  built  of  stone.  Moreover, 
there  was  no  junction  between  the  two,  for  the 
edges  of  the  brickwork  were  gaping  and  ragged. 
The  obstruction  could  therefore  be  neither  the 
natural  end  of  the  passage  nor  an  artificial  bar 
rier.  It  was  simply  what  the  old  man  said — an 
independent  structure  which  had  happened, 
under  ground,  to  cut  into  the  older  one.  And 


58  MORTMAIN 

the  torso  built  into  the  corner  told  the  rest  of 
the  story. 

It  told  so  much,  in  the  uncanny  silence,  that 
Bisbee  grew  cold.  He  stood  there,  staring  at 
the  mutilated  marble,  waiting  he  knew  not  for 
what.  The  only  words  he  could  think  of  were 
those  in  which  he  had  once  heard  the  young 
man  describe  what  they  were  to  find  here,  en 
tangled  with  the  ones  that  had  come  to  him  as 
he  entered  the  tunnel.  Then  a  sudden  crack  of 
wood  made  him  start.  The  youth  began  beat 
ing  the  wall  insensately  with  his  stick. 

"Dogs !  Devils !"  he  panted  through  his  teeth. 
"Jackals  of  the  desert  that  defile  the  palaces  of 
kings !  There  is  no  God !  There  is  no  mercy  in 
the  world!  How  should  they  have  found  it? 
Did  they  wait  four  hundred  years?  Ah — 
thieves!  Thieves!  They  have  taken  all  — 

all There  is  no  more  hope — no  hope 

There " 

He  crumpled  into  a  senseless  heap  on  the 
ground. 


MEHMISH 

As  a  general  rule,  people,  even  the  wicked,  are  much 
more  naive  and  simple-hearted  than  we  suppose.  And 
we  ourselves  are,  too. 

— Fedor  Dostoevsky:  THE  BROTHERS  KARAMAZOV. 

CAN  you  manage  to  make  a  place  for  a  man, 
I  wonder?  He  has  already  been  in  our 
service.  He  used  to  be  doorkeeper  fifteen 
years  ago.  When  I  tell  you  why  he  left,  and 
where  he  has  been  for  the  fifteen  years,  I  sup 
pose  you  will  throw  up  your  hands.  I  can  assure 
you,  though,  that  you'll  never  find  a  better  man. 
He  is  pure  Turk,  and  he's  worth  sixty  of  that 
hulking  Croat  of  yours  who  is  always  peeping 
into  his  pocket  glass.  Mehmish  may  not  be  so 
ornamental.  I  presume  he  is  even  slower 
witted.  But  within  his  limits  he  is  absolutely 
reliable — absolutely.  He's  as  honest  as  the 
Bank  of  England,  and  when  he  says  he'll  do  a 
thing  he  does  it. 

We  found  that  out  not  long  after  he  first 
came.  We  took  him  as  a  bekji — a  night  watch 
man — and  he  did  any  other  dirty  work  that  was 
going.  The  chief  at  that  time  was  Perkin — you 
remember?  He  was  the  one  who  afterward 

59 


60  MEHMISH 

married  that  Philadelphia  soap  widow.  Well, 
he  was  fond  of  farming — that  sort  of  thing. 
He  made  quite  a  garden  of  his  Therapia  place. 
And  one  day  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  keep 
bees.  There  was  a  man  somewhere  on  the  Bos- 
phorus  who  had  bees  to  sell,  and  Mehmish  was 
detailed  to  transfer  them.  The  people  gave  him 
the  hive  done  up  in  a  sack,  which  he  carried 
over  his  shoulder.  The  bees  apparently  didn't 
enjoy  that  mode  of  travel.  At  all  events  they 
managed  to  find  a  hole  in  the  sack,  or  the  cor 
ner  of  the  hive  worked  one;  and  they  cleared 
the  deck  of  a  crowded  Bosphorus  steamer  as 
neatly  as  a  Maxim  gun — of  every  one,  that  is, 
except  Mehmish.  Do  you  think  he  was  going  to 
run  away  for  a  few  warlike  bees  ?  Not  a  bit  of 
it.  He  had  been  told  to  carry  that  hive  to 
Therapia,  and  he  carried  it.  You  should  have 
seen  him  afterward,  though.  There  wasn't  a 
square  millimetre  of  his  face,  neck,  or  hands 
those  brutes  didn't  raise  a  blister  on.  I  don't 
know  how  long  it  was  before  the  man  could  look 
out  of  his  eyes.  But  the  most  amazing  part  of 
it  was  that  he  didn't  seem  too  sorry  for  himself. 
Anybody  else,  conceiving  that  he  had  had  the 
nerve  to  stick  to  the  hive  instead  of  pitching  it 
overboard,  would  have  expected  to  be  petted  for 
the  rest  of  his  natural  life.  Not  so  Mehmish. 
He  merely  said :  "It  was  written  that  that  also 


MEHMISH  61 

should  come  upon  my  head."  And  no  one  could 
have  been  more  surprised  or  grateful  than  he 
when  we  promoted  him  to  be  doorkeeper. 

I  presume  there  are  dozens  of  men  in  this 
town  who  would  have  done  the  same  thing.  It's 
that  in  the  Turks  that  carried  them  to  Vienna 
four  hundred  years  ago,  and  it's  that  that's 
going  to  carry  them  through  a  good  many  other 
things.  Perkin  called  it  stupidity.  Perhaps  he 
was  right;  but  I  must  say  I  have  a  fancy  for 
that  form  of  stupidity.  Perkin  himself  didn't 
happen  to  be  stupid  in  that  particular  way.  The 
fact  that  Mehmish  did  gave  me  an  interest  in 
him.  It  wasn't  only  that  I  like  a  man  to  show  a 
salient  characteristic.  Part  of  it  was  simply 
because  Mehmish  was  a  Turk,  and  because  I 
always  had  a  weakness  for  what  Perkin  called 
low  company.  He  used  to  be  fearfully  scan 
dalized  because  nothing  pleased  me  so  much  as 
to  put  on  a  fez  and  some  clothes  of  a  local  cut  I 
had  made,  and  go  knocking  about  coffee-houses. 
I  saw  and  heard  a  good  many  amusing  things, 
too.  But  unluckily  it  doesn't  do  to  go  in  too 
much  for  that  sort  of  thing.  Only  those  paint 
ing  and  scribbling  chaps  can  prowl  around  in 
places  where  they  don't  belong.  The  rest  of  us 
have  our  blessed  dignity  to  maintain,  or  that  of 
our  blessed  positions.  I  have  an  idea,  though, 
that  there  is  more  genuineness  in  the  coffee- 


62  MEHMISH 

house  kind  of  people:  at  least  you  find  out 
quicker  whether  they  stand  on  their  own  feet 
or  not.  We  others  are  generally  what  we  are 
because  our  environment  props  us  up.  If  we 
were  suddenly  left  to  shift  for  ourselves,  with 
out  a  piastre  or  a  recommendation,  I  wonder 
how  many  of  us  would  keep  our  noses  above 
water.  I'm  afraid  I  wouldn't,  at  any  rate.  I 
was  born  of  respectable  parents,  I  was  sent  to  a 
respectable  school,  I  proceeded  to  a  respectable 
college,  I  entered  a  respectable  career,  and  have 
reached  a  respectable  position  in  it,  without 
lifting  a  finger  or  encountering  an  obstacle.  But 
if  I  were  to  be  wrecked  on  a  desert  island  to 
morrow  I  should  die  in  a  week,  because  I  am 
incapable  of  doing  anything  with  my  hands.  I 
therefore  have  great  respect  for  those  who  can, 
and  I  have  an  immense  curiosity  about  what 
goes  on  inside  of  them. 

I  can't  say,  though,  that  I  ever  got  much  idea 
of  what  went  on  inside  of  Mehmish.  I  don't  sup 
pose  he  did  himself,  for  that  matter — or  if  he 
did,  that  he  knew  how  to  say  so.  It  certainly 
was  hard  enough  to  get  anything  out  of  him. 
Not  that  his  doings  were  likely  to  be  very  ex 
traordinary.  But  the  fillip  of  life,  for  me,  is  in 
the  small  permutations  and  combinations  of 
incident  that  make  up  the  lives  of  us  all.  And  I 
have  often  picked  up  a  trait  of  character  or  a 


MEHMISH  63 

turn  of  phrase  from  a  Mehmish  that  has  stood 
me  in  good  stead  with  a  Pasha.  Did  you  ever 
realize,  however,  what  an  art  it  is  to  tell  the 
story  of  one's  day  ?  Women  sometimes  have  it 
to  perfection.  We  call  it  gossip,  but  it  is  the 
raw  material  of  literature,  and  it  is  better  than 
the  glum  silences  that  fill  so  many  habitual 
tete-a-tetes.  The  case  of  Mehmish  rather  in 
trigued  me,  because  I  never  knew  how  much  of 
his  speechlessness  was  a  personal  and  how 
much  a  racial  character.  But  given  the  excel 
lence  of  our  relations  I  came  to  regard  his 
silence  as  the  silence  of  the  East,  unasking  and 
unresponsive.  It  was  only  by  chance,  and  in 
deed  rather  than  in  word,  that  anything  came 
out  of  him.  I  remember  when  he  went  to  his 
"country."  It  was  somewhere  up  the  Black  Sea. 
All  that  sort  of  people  come  from  the  provinces, 
you  know.  They  live  here  without  their  women, 
in  corners  of  the  buildings  where  they  are  em 
ployed  or  herded  together  in  hans,  without  ever 
really  detaching  themselves  from  the  places 
where  they  were  born  or  becoming  a  part  of 
this  one.  Some  of  them  do,  of  course,  but  the 
great  mass  of  them  live  like  strangers  in  a 
strange  land,  speaking  their  own  dialect,  wear 
ing  their  own  costume,  following  their  own  cus 
toms,  and  going  to  their  country,  as  they  call  it, 
at  long  intervals — to  marry,  to  take  money,  to 


64  MEHMISH 

die.  Still,  they  all  go.  It  is  like  a  disease,  and 
when  the  fit  comes  on  there  is  nothing  for  it  but 
to  let  them  go.  Can  you  wonder?  They  put  a 
friend  in  their  place  and  expect  you  to  take 
them  back  when  they  return. 

The  fit  came  on  Mehmish  when  he  had  been 
here  about  four  years.  In  the  meantime,  how 
ever,  there  had  arisen  a  Pharaoh  who  knew  not 
Joseph.  When  Mehmish  requested  me  to  in 
form  the  chief  that  he  was  going  to  his  country, 
the  chief  took  it  in  the  wrong  spirit — not  that  it 
really  made  any  difference  to  him.  Mehmish 
was  no  more  to  him  than  any  other  outlandish 
individual  in  blue  and  silver.  What  he  objected 
to  was  the  principle  of  Mehmish  taking  the 
matter  into  his  own  hands.  You  see  he  hap 
pened  to  be  a  chief  imbued  with  a  sense  of  dis 
cipline.  But  I  told  the  story  of  the  bees,  and  ex 
plained  the  customs  of  the  country,  and  finally 
extorted  the  desired  permission.  So  Mehmish 
went.  After  he  had  gone  the  man  he  left  in  his 
place  told  me  he  had  gone  to  get  married.  Of 
course  Mehmish  would  never  have  mentioned  it. 
Under  the  circumstances  I  wondered  if  he 
would  really  come  back  in  six  months,  as  he 
said  he  would.  While  I  had  perfect  faith  in  his 
general  reliability,  I  knew  that  Asia  is  a  little 
romantic  about  dates  and  the  precise  fulfilment 
of  promises.  But  he  came  back  on  the  dot. 


MEHMISH  65 

"Vai,  Mehmish!"  I  exclaimed  when  I  found 
him  at  the  door  one  morning.  "Have  you  come 
back?" 

"Behold!"  he  answered,  making  me  a  low 
salaam. 

I  was  genuinely  glad  to  see  him  again,  and 
genuinely  curious,  as  ever,  to  know  what  he  had 
been  up  to. 

"Well,  what  news?" 

"Soundness,  thanks  to  God!"  he  returned, 
smiling  and  shrugging  his  shoulders. 

And  that  would  have  been  the  sum  of  his  con 
tribution  to  my  studies  of  Turkish  peasant  life, 
if  it  had  not  been  for  a  letter  that  came  long 
afterward.  The  letter  was  brought  among 
others  to  me.  When  I  handed  it  to  Mehmish  he 
surprised  me  by  asking  me  to  read  it  to  him. 
He  said,  apologetically,  that  it  was  the  first  he 
had  had  since  leaving  his  country,  and  that  he 
would  not  be  free  for  some  hours  to  go  out  and 
get  it  read.  I  agreed  with  the  more  willingness 
because  I  had  always  wondered  what  passes  be 
tween  the  public  letter  writers  you  see  and  the 
clients  who  squat  beside  them.  This  missive 
contained  none  of  the  flowers  of  rhetoric  or  the 
page-long  sentences  that  distinguish  our  official 
correspondence  with  the  Turks.  It  began  by 
stating  that  "I,  your  father,  Hassan,  write  this 
letter,"  and  it  continued  with  a  catalogue  of 


66  MEHMISH 

names  of  compatriots  to  whom  that  gentleman 
sent  salutations.  There  followed  another  cata 
logue  of  those  who  sent  salutations  to  Mehmish, 
and  it  briefly  ended  by  informing  Mehmish  that 
his  "family"  had  died  the  day  after  he  left. 
This  calamity  was  not  quite  of  the  magnitude 
you  might  think,  for  a  family  in  Turkish  is  a 
wife.  But  I  was  none  the  less  moved  with  won 
der  and  distress — at  their  not  having  sent  news 
before,  at  my  having  come  plump  on  the  thing, 
like  that,  after  the  salutations.  If  I  expected  a 
scene,  however,  Mehmish  was  not  the  man  to 
make  it. 

"God  is  great,"  he  uttered  gravely,  to  cover 
my  embarrassment. 

I  made  a  pretence  of  examining  the  bald 
statement  again,  in  the  hope  of  extracting  fur 
ther  particulars,  and  mumbled  something  about 
my  lack  of  success. 

"My  family  was  ill  when  I  came  away,"  he 
gravely  volunteered. 

"But,  Mehmish,"  I  uttered  in  astonishment, 
"why  did  you  come  away  if  she  was  so  ill  as 
that?  We  would  have  excused  you." 

"Eh,"  he  returned,  "it  was  the  last  day  I 
could  start  to  get  back  here  in  time.  I  promised 
I  would  come.  Also,  we  needed  money.  The 
day  I  went  to  my  country  I  was  robbed." 

"Oh,  Mehmish!    Of  not  much,  I  hope?" 


MEHMISH  67 

"Of  all  I  had,  Effendim.  They  saw  me  take  it 
out  of  my  girdle  when  I  bought  my  ticket,  and 
they  stole  it  on  the  steamer  when  I  was  asleep. 
I  didn't  know  until  I  had  left  the  steamer.  But 
my  parents  had  already  found  a  girl  for  me, 
and  in  order  not  to  make  shame  to  them  we 
had  to  sell  fields.  Now  we  shall  buy  them 
back." 

Imagine — the  poor  chap  losing  all  he  had 
scraped  together  in  who  knows  how  long,  then 
losing  his  wife  as  well,  and  still  having  to 
scrape  the  money  together  again  for  her  dot! 
I  am  afraid  I  might  have  said  or  done  some 
thing  very  stupid  if  Mehmish  had  not  left  the 
room,  saying: 

"It  was  written  that  that  also  should  come 
upon  my  head." 

His  final  departure  was  of  a  piece  with  the 
rest  of  him.  One  morning  when  I  came  to  the 
office  he  did  not  rise  as  he  always  did  and  salute 
me.  He  remained  on  his  stool,  head  down,  mut 
tering  to  himself.  I  caught  the  word  "afraid." 
The  thing  was  so  different  from  his  ordinary 
manner  that  it  intrigued  me.  When  I  got  in 
side  I  asked  another  servant  what  the  matter 
was  with  Mehmish. 

"Vallah,  I  don't  know,"  replied  the  man. 
"He  has  been  like  that  only  this  morning.  He 
sits  and  talks  to  no  one  but  himself." 


68  MEHMISH 

So  when  I  went  out  a  little  later  I  made  a 
point  of  speaking  to  Mehmish : 

"Good  morning,  Mehmish,"  I  said.  "What  is 
the  matter?  Are  you  ill?" 

He  got  up  hastily  and  salaamed. 

"No,  Chelebi,"  he  answered.  "My  soul  is 
squeezed." 

This  was  more,  in  the  case  of  so  taciturn  a 
person,  than  I  might  have  expected. 

"May  it  have  passed,"  I  wished  him  after  a 
pause,  and  went  on. 

I  had  affairs  about  town  that  morning  and 
did  not  return  to  the  office  till  after  lunch.  As 
I  did  so  whom  should  I  meet  on  the  Grande  Rue 
but  Mehmish  walking  between  two  policemen 
and  handcuffed  like  a  criminal.  I  was  so  amazed 
that  I  let  him  pass  without  a  word.  There  was 
no  one  whom  I  would  so  little  have  expected  to 
see  in  such  a  plight.  As  for  Mehmish,  he  raised 
his  arms  to  his  breast — he  could  not  salaam  be 
cause  of  the  handcuffs — and  bowed  low.  When 
I  came  to  my  wits  I  hurried  after  him. 

"What  is  this?"  I  demanded  of  the  older 
policeman.  "I  know  this  man.  Let  him  go.  If 
you  have  anything  to  say,  come  to  our  office.  I 
will  be  surety  for  him.  He  has  been  with  us 
five  years,  and  I  would  trust  him  like  my 
brother." 

"Then,  Effendim,  you  will  learn,"  replied  my 


MEHMISH  69 

philosopher  of  the  brass  plaque,  "that  you  may 
trust  no  one  in  this  world.  For  Mehmish  has 
just  killed  a  man." 

I  laughed. 

"Killed  a  man?  Mehmish  would  not  kill  a 
scorpion !  Let  him  go,  I  say !" 

The  officer  shrugged  his  shoulders  politely. 

"I  am  sorry,"  he  said,  "but  what  can  I  do? 
There  are  witnesses.  Ask  them." 

The  absurdity  of  the  thing  left  me  speech 
less.  I  looked  at  Mehmish.  Then  I  noticed  for 
the  first  time  the  disorder  of  his  clothes,  cer 
tain  sinister  stains  on  them.  Yet  I  was  reas 
sured  by  the  way  in  which  Mehmish  looked 
back  at  me.  It  did  not  prepare  me  to  hear  him 
say: 

"It  is  true.    He  said  I  was  afraid." 

It  was  true,  you  know.  He  had  stabbed  a  man 
in  Kassim  Pasha,  the  gully  down  there  under 
the  Little  Field  of  the  Dead.  I  don't  suppose 
you  ever  put  your  aristocratic  feet  into  it,  but 
I  happen  to  know  its  coffee-houses  flourishing 
in  sweet  proximity  to  an  open  drain,  its  sub 
sidiary  aroma  of  mastic,  its  crazy  wooden 
bridges,  its  jingling  crank  pianos,  and  its  gyp 
sies  whose  get-up  is  rather  like  the  Latin  Quar 
ter  except  that  their  jackets  aren't  cut  in  at  the 
waist  or  their  trousers  at  the  bottom  and  that 
they  wear  an  almost  black  fez.  It  was  one  of 


70  MEHMISH 

them,  the  bully  of  the  ravine,  whom  Mehmish 
had  killed;  and  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
the  fellow  had  called  him  a  coward.  He  told  me 
about  it  at  the  guard-house — as  much  about 
it  as  I  could  drag  out  of  him.  He  made  no  story 
of  it,  and  no  attempt  at  defence.  He  hardly 
knew  the  man  he  had  killed,  whom  he  had  first 
met  in  a  coffee-house  a  few  days  before — who 
had  spoken  boastingly  of  his  own  strength  and 
bravery  and  spoken  slightingly  of  Mehmish, 
and  whom  Mehmish  had  encountered  that 
morning  on  his  way  to  the  office. 

"He  said  I  was  afraid,"  repeated  Mehmish 
for  the  hundredth  time. 

"Of  what?"  I  asked. 

"Of  him,  of  his  knife." 

"What  did  you  do?" 

"I  went  to  the  office.    It  was  my  hour." 

That  was  why  his  soul  was  squeezed !  I  sup 
pose  he  had  gone  on  muttering  the  man's  words 
to  himself  all  the  morning. 

"What  happened  when  you  went  out  at 
noon?"  I  pursued. 

"I  went  to  look  for  him."  And  I  suppose 
Mehmish  would  not  have  uttered  another  word 
if  I  had  not  demanded: 

"Well,  what  then?" 

"I  found  him  in  the  coffee-house,  and  I  said 
to  him :  'You  said  I  was  afraid.  I  also  have  a 


MEHMISH  71 

knife.  Let  us  see  which  of  us  will  kill  the 
other/  " 

"What  did  he  do?" 

"He  laughed,  and  said  that  the  men  of  Ana 
tolia  were  afraid,  except  of  women  and  boys." 

"And  you?" 

"Eh,  I  showed  him." 

Mehmish  didn't  show  me,  however.  He  left 
it  there,  while  I  stared  at  him. 

"But  is  that  a  thing  to  do,"  I  finally  de 
manded — "to  give  a  man  a  knife  for  an  empty 
word?" 

"He  should  not  have  spoken  it.  He  had  time. 
He  might  have  killed  me." 

I  could  quite  see  it,  in  the  light  of  Mehmish's 
simplicity.  And  I  ventured  to  ask  him  one 
more  question: 

"What  did  you  do  afterward?" 

"Afterward?"  repeated  Mehmish,  as  if 
searching  his  memory.  "Ah,  afterward  I  heard 
the  muezzin  in  the  minaret.  So  I  pulled  my 
knife  out  of  him  and  went  to  the  mosque  to 
wash  and  to  pray." 

Yes,  sir,  that's  what  he  did !  And  he  got  fif 
teen  years  for  it.  We  had  a  great  row  over  him. 
In  the  good  old  times  manslaughter  was  a 
venial  offence.  There  were  plenty  of  ways  of 
hushing  up  unpleasant  questions,  and  even  if 
you  did  get  caught,  a  capital  sentence,  under 


72  MEHMISH 

the  tender-hearted  Abd-ul-Hamid,  was  never 
executed.  When  people  had  to  be  suppressed 
it  was  done  quietly  and  without  scandal.  But 
this  affair  was  too  public  to  be  hushed  up.  And 
Mehmish  made  not  the  slightest  chance  for 
himself.  Although  we  did  the  best  we  could  for 
him,  who  could  get  around  the  fact  that  he  had 
spitted  the  bully  of  Kassim  Pasha,  in  broad  day 
light,  before  dozens  of  witnesses,  for  no  ether 
reason  than  that  the  fellow  had  questioned  his 
courage?  At  least  that  was  all  anybody  could 
get  out  of  him. 

He  took  his  sentence  as  he  took  everything 
else.  "It  was  written  that  that  also  should 
come  upon  my  head,"  he  said.  He  also  asked 
me  to  keep  his  place  for  him !  Which  is  why  I 
am  telling  you  all  this.  They  shut  him  up  in  a 
tower  at  Sinope,  at  first,  and  I  used  to  send  him 
tobacco.  Then  they  changed  him  and  I  lost 
track  of  him.  I  thought  he  must  be  dead.  I 
used  to  wonder  about  him  though.  I  had  seen 
less  of  blood-letting  in  those  days,  and  I  found 
it  harder  to  square  with  the  rest  of  Mehmish. 
Had  he  really  finished  that  chap  for  the  reason 
he  gave?  Might  it  not  have  been  some  matter 
of  chivalry  for  him  to  stick  so  to  his  answer? 
What,  working  darkly  in  that  Asiatic  head  of 
his,  could  in  the  last  analysis  have  brought  him 
to  that  bloody  conclusion? 


MEHMISH  73 

Last  night  I  was  walking  down  from  the 
Taxim  when  I  saw  a  knot  of  people  blocking 
the  pavement.  I  stopped  to  see  what  was  up. 
I  am  a  child,  you  know,  for  staring  at  what  goes 
on  in  the  street.  A  hamal  or  peasant  of  some 
sort  seemed  to  be  having  an  altercation  with  a 
policeman  in  the  midst  of  the  knot.  I  asked  a 
small  boy  what  it  was  about.  The  small  boy 
tapped  his  forehead  with  a  grin  and  told  me 
that  the  hamal  had  been  standing  in  front  of 
the  house  till  the  people  inside  got  frightened 
and  sent  for  the  police.  The  house,  as  it  hap 
pened,  was  one  in  which  I  used  to  live  myself. 
I  started  to  pass  on.  As  I  did  so  the  hamal 
pushed  his  way  through  the  crowd  toward  me, 
and  made  a  deep  salaam.  I  salaamed  in  return, 
offhand,  not  anxious  to  make  myself  the  centre 
of  a  new  ring.  Then  the  hamal  said,  with  a 
note  in  his  voice  that  made  me  stop : 

"Chelebi,  don't  you  know  me?" 

I  looked  at  him.  He  was  ragged,  grizzled, 
thin.  There  was  nothing  about  him  of  the  stal 
wart  doorman  we  used  to  have.  But  I  did  know 
him. 

"Few,  Mehmish!"  I  exclaimed,  holding  out 
my  hand. 

He  took  it  and  did  not  let  it  go,  after  the  way 
they  have. 

"I  have  been  waiting  for  you,"  he  said. 


74  MEHMISH 

That  was  why  he  had  frightened  the  people 
in  the  house !  As  for  me,  I  wondered  what  one 
could  say  to  a  man  when  the  best  years  of  his 
life  had  been  taken  from  him,  and  he  returned 
to  find  himself  forgotten.  Through  the  sudden 
sense  of  it  all  the  old  curiosity  was  the  first 
thing  that  came  back  to  me,  and  I  asked: 

"Why  did  you  do  it,  Mehmish?" 

But  Mehmish's  fifteen  years  had  not  crushed 
him,  for  he  answered: 

"What  could  I  do?    He  said  I  was  afraid." 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

It  is  by  folly  alone  that  the  world  moves,  and  so  it  is 
a  respectable  thing  upon  the  whole. 

— Joseph  Conrad:  VICTORY. 


I  WAS  looking  for  a  Legation. 
That  used  to  be  my  principal  pastime,  you 
know — hunting  Legations.  Every  now  and 
then  they  would  send  out  a  new  Minister  from 
Washington,  and  the  first  thing  to  do  was  to 
find  him  a  Legation.  He  never  wanted  the  one 
the  last  man  had.  And  who  should  be  up  on 
Legations  but  the  oldest  living  American  resi 
dent  ?  The  secretaries,  amiable  and  peripatetic 
young  gentlemen — you  know  how  it  is.  Even 
the  Dragoman,  in  those  pre-ambassadorial  days, 
was  much  less  of  a  fixture  than  his  colleagues 
in  the  service.  Moreover,  he  was  likely  to  be  a 
native  of  the  country,  upon  whom  a  brand  new 
Minister  would  gaze  with  questioning  eye.  The 
oldest  living  resident  was  really  the  only  one 
who  stayed — the  oldest  living  resident  and  the 
landlords.  What  a  crew  they  were!  I  nat 
urally  came  in  time  to  know  them  like  brothers. 

75 


76  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

Of  course  they  conceived  that  the  good  old  war 
cry  of  democratic  simplicity  had  been  invented 
to  make  a  new  Minister  pay  four  times  as  much 
rent  as  a  Legation  was  worth,  and  they  hated 
me  for  standing  between  them  and  the  shorn 
lamb  of  the  moment.  Nevertheless  they  were 
at  me  the  instant  they  heard  any  rumour  of  a 
change,  begging  me  for  introductions  to  the 
new  Minister,  promising  me  fat  commissions 
if  I  would  land  him  for  them,  trying  to  work  off 
on  me  the  same  old  houses  they  had  tried  for 
years  to  work  off  on  me.  There  was  a  house  up 
in  Selvi  Sira  that  no  one  has  ever  lived  in  with 
out  meeting  a  sudden  and  violent  end.  There 
was  another  house  that  some  mysterious  per 
son  was  always  setting  on  fire.  There  was  a 
big  marble  house  near  the  British  Embassy 
that  stood  empty  for  years  because  of  a  spring 
in  the  cellar  that  nobody  could  stop  up  or  pipe 
away.  Time  and  again  they  brought  it  to  me 
in  their  pocket,  all  nicely  dried  out  with  a  bath 
towel.  I  don't  know  what  they  didn't  bring 
me.  It  was  rather  amusing,  too,  you  know.  I 
came  across  all  sorts  of  things.  But  you  are 
forever  coming  across  things  in  this  extraor 
dinary  town  of  theirs.  Did  you  ever  see  such 
a  place  ? 

However,  I  was  looking,  as  I  say,  for  a  Lega 
tion.    And  I  ended  by  coming  across  something 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  77 

new.    For  me,  at  least,  it  was  new.    Just  wait 
till  I  give  it  to  you  in  order. 

II 

The  house  stood  in  the  middle  of  a  huge  gar 
den,  somewhere  up  in  the  Taxim.  The  place 
was  more  Italian  than  most  of  them  here.  The 
terraces  had  big  marble  balustrades,  and  there 
were  statues  and  fountains  and  things.  The 
best  of  it  was  that  you  could  see  everywhere — 
the  lower  half  of  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Mar 
mora,  that  is.  And  from  the  top  of  the  house, 
where  there  was  a  kind  of  belvedere,  you  could 
look  over  into  the  Golden  Horn — I  don't  know 
how  far  up. 

An  old  man  showed  me  about.  He  had  more 
the  air  of  a  family  servant  than  of  a  mere 
custodian.  I  asked  him  to  whom  the  place 
belonged. 

"Madame  Belize,"  he  said.  Then  he  cor 
rected  himself.  "No,  I  mean  Missiri  Bey." 

I  laughed.    "Well,  which?" 

"Missiri  Bey,"  he  answered  queerly.  "Madame 
Belize" — he  paused  a  moment — "is  dead." 

I  don't  suppose  any  of  you  young  fellows  ever 
saw  Missiri.  He  used  to  come  here  to  the  club 
a  good  deal,  especially  when  there  was  playing. 
But  I'm  afraid  to  guess  how  long  ago.  He  was 
of  the  place,  you  know — a  Levantine — with 


78  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

more  kinds  of  blood  in  him  than  wines  at  a 
banquet.  He  was  in  the  Regie,  I  believe ;  was 
richish,  and  had  been  quite  a  dragon  in  his  day. 
Belize  was  a  name  new  to  me,  though.  That  is, 
for  such  a  house.  I  could  not  think  why  I  had 
never  known  about  it,  nor  about  Madame.  So  I 
asked  the  old  man  who  she  was. 

He  looked  at  me  as  if  he  thought  it  strange 
that  I  should  ask.  And  I  didn't  wonder— after 
ward. 

"Madame  Belize?"  He  hesitated  a  little. 
"You  know  the  Patisserie  Belize  ?  She  was  the 
wife  of  that  Monsieur  Belize." 

I  was  rather  surprised.  I  knew  that  name  of 
course,  as  you  all  do.  Who  has  not  munched 
little  cakes  and  sipped  little  liqueurs  at  Belize's  ? 
But  I  had  not  connected  a  patisserie  with  such  a 
place  as  the  one  I  was  looking  at.  One  somehow 
imagines  patisseries  to  exist  to  and  for  them 
selves,  without  anything  behind  them.  But 
Belize's  has  a  good  deal  behind  it. 

I  didn't  find  out  just  then,  though.  I  found 
out  first  that  while  they  much  preferred  to  sell, 
they  were  willing  under  certain  conditions  to 
let — unfurnished.  It  was  well  worth  consider 
ing.  The  house  was  very  decent  as  houses  here 
go.  It  was  built  on  the  good  old  plan  of  central 
halls  running  through  from  front  to  back,  with 
the  rooms  opening  out  on  each  side.  But  there 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  79 

was  one  peculiarity.  I  discovered  that  as  soon 
as  we  went  in.  The  walls  of  the  big  marble  en 
trance  hall  were  completely  lined  with  mirror- 
glass.  I  don't  mean  French  mirrors  with  those 
impossible  gilt  frames.  Each  wall  was  simply 
one  gigantic  looking-glass,  with  hardly  so  much 
as  a  knob  or  a  crack  in  it.  It  gave  the  strangest 
illusion  of  space.  However,  I  thought  little  of 
it  then.  You  see  the  wildest  freaks  in  these 
houses.  Nor  did  I  think  much  when  the  walls 
of  the  grand  staircase  proved  to  be  similarly 
decorated.  It  had  to  go  with  the  hall,  more  or 
less.  But  the  upper  hall  did  not  have  to  go  with 
the  lower,  nor  did  the  rooms  of  state.  They 
did,  nevertheless.  Every  room  in  the  place,  if 
you  please — not  counting  the  pieces  de  service 
— was  tricked  out  in  the  same  way.  Every 
room,  that  is,  except  two.  These  adjoined  each 
other,  and  were  lined  with  a  charming  old  green 
damask. 

When  we  came  to  that  green  damask  I  simply 
couldn't  hold  in  any  longer. 

"If  you  had  twenty  rooms  in  green  damask 
and  two  in  glass,  I  might  think  about  it!"  I 
cried  out.  "But  as  it  is "  I  laughed. 

The  old  man  looked  at  me  very  solemnly. 
"Excuse  me,"  he  said,  with  a  kind  of  respectful 
reproach ;  "it  is  not  a  thing  for  laughter." 

"Well,  I  suppose  not,"  I  conceded,  as  hand- 


80  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

somely  as  I  could — "with  what  it  must  have 
cost  and  with  what  it  would  cost  to  put  the 
walls  in  order  again.  Will  Missiri  Bey  do  it 
for  us?" 

"Ah,  there  is  nothing  that  Missiri  Bey  will 
not  do!"  he  exclaimed,  shrugging  his  shoul 
ders. 

I  don't  know — I  began  to  get  curious.  It  was 
not  only  that  I  had  never  in  my  life  seen  such  a 
preposterous  place.  The  old  man  himself,  with 
his  tones  and  his  gestures,  made  all  sorts  of 
questions  go  through  my  head.  I  was  aching  to 
ask  where  Monsieur  Belize  came  in — or  went 
out — and  where  Missiri.  But  I  contented  my 
self  with  echoing: 

"Oh,  Missiri  Bey!" 

It  was  evidently  my  cue.  I  saw  that  by  the 
old  man's  look.  But  I  wanted  more  than  looks ! 
We  returned  to  the  great  hall  of  the  second 
floor — the  premi&re,  as  you  have  it.  The  place 
was  extraordinary,  with  its  mirror  walls.  It 
was  enough  to  drive  one  silly.  In  all  the  huge 
bareness  of  it  there  was  nothing  but  an  in 
finity  of  reflections — until  one  doubted  even  the 
good  green  garden  trees  at  the  end  windows. 
It  reached  out  on  each  side  to  interminable 
vistas,  and  the  two  of  us  were  merely  the  near 
est  of  an  army. 

"What  things  these  walls  have  seen,  eh?"  I 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  81 

uttered  at  last.  "One  can  imagine — with  lights 
and  flowers  and  silks  and  jewels  and  uniforms 
and  all!" 

The  old  man  looked  about  and  slowly  shook 
his  head. 

"They  have  seen  things — the  mirrors.  But 

not  what  you  think.  Madame  Belize "  He 

stopped. 

"She  was  an  invalid?"  I  ventured. 

"Oh,  no!"  he  answered  quickly,  almost  as  if 
I  had  made  an  accusation.  And  after  a  moment : 
"She  was  the  most  beautiful  woman  in  the 
world.  She  was  always  alone.  That  is,  after 
the  mirrors.  .  .  .  That  was  why  she  had  them. 
She  said  they  gave  her  company." 

I  took  this  in  with  open  mouth.  One  could 
imagine  oneself  to  have  company  well  enough, 
seeing  the  crowds  of  old  men  and  house  hunters 
who  dwindled  away  on  either  hand.  But  what 
company!  I  need  not  tell  you  that  I  let  lega 
tions  go  to  pot — after  that.  My  old  man  and 
his  Madame  Belize  were  much  too  interesting. 
I  don't  need  to  tell  you,  either,  how  it  was  with 
the  old  man.  He  wasn't  the  kind  that  you  could 
corrupt.  It  was  simply  that  he  was  full  of  his 
story  and  hadn't  had  a  chance  to  tell  it.  So  I 
got  it.  It  was  a  little  queer,  too,  you  know — 
what  I  got.  But  everything's  a  little  queer  in 
this  place. 


82  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

III 

It  all  began  with  old  Belize.  There  originally 
had  been  a  Belize,  it  seemed.  He  was  a  Levan 
tine,  too;  less  mixed  up  than  Missiri,  perhaps, 
but  by  no  means  so  high  up — even  as  things  go 
here.  And  he  was  a  humpback  into  the  bargain. 
He  kept  a  little  Patisserie  Frangaise  down  in 
Galata  somewhere,  and  made  enough  money  out 
of  it  to  go  one  day  to  Budapest.  That  is  what 
these  people  do,  you  know — they  go  to  Buda 
pest.  It  is  the  nearest  outpost  of  civilization. 

Our  humpback  Belize  had  a  good  time  there, 
too.  He  went  up  to  Margitsziget— you  know, 
that  jolly  island  in  the  Danube.  Only  I  must 
believe  that  his  experience  was  in  some  particu 
lars  unique.  Not  that  it  was  so  remarkable  for 
him  to  admire  the  first  Kellnerimfc  he  saw  in  the 
first  beer  garden  he  entered.  We  have  all 
admired  a  Kellnerin^.  But  with  us  admiration 
operates — what  shall  I  say  ? — more  lightly,  less 
fatefully.  There  are  also  kellnerintfs  and  kell- 
nerinns.  To  this  one,  however,  Belize  said,  as 
if  on  second  thought  he  would  order  another 
beer: 

"Will  you  go  to  Constantinople  with  me  to 
morrow  ?" 

Imagine!  He  had  barely  arrived,  and  had 
intended  to  take  a  bit  of  a  holiday.  He  must 
have  been  quite  a  man,  Belize.  Not  only  was  he 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  83 

a  patisseur,  you  remember,  but  he  was  also  a 
humpback.  While  she —  I  never  saw  her,  of 
course,  but  my  old  man  quite  lost  himself  de 
scribing  her.  He  was  the  confidential  attache 
of  the  first  patisserie,  and  knew  her  from  the 
beginning.  She  was  tall,  and  rather  fair  for  a 
Hungarian — or  she  might  have  been  Austrian 
— and  she  had  an  air.  She  had  an  air !  I  imag 
ine  that  she  may  have  been  one  of  those  lovely 
impassive  women  who  frighten  you  so  much 
more  than  they  deserve,  simply  because  they 
are  so  impassive  and  so  lovely. 

Well,  the  Kellnerinri  looked  at  Belize  a  min 
ute.  She  had  eyes,  the  old  man  said — and  he, 
too,  for  that  matter.  Then  she  said: 

"Thank  you,  no.    I  already  have  a  husband." 

"What  are  you  doing  here,  then?"  inquired 
Belize. 

"I  am  getting  my  bread  and  onions,"  replied 
the  girl. 

"Oh!"  says  Belize.  "Is  your  husband  a 
cripple?" 

"No,"  said  she.    "He  is  a  stone-cutter." 

"Does  he  ever  try  his  chisel  on  your  back, 
perhaps  ?" 

"Eh !    When  he  is  drunk." 

"I  see,"  returned  Belize.  "Have  you  chil 
dren?" 

The  Kellnerinn  shook  her  head. 


84  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

"It  would  not  have  mattered — if  they  were 
pretty,"  said  Belize.  "Take  me  to  your  stone 
cutter." 

Did  you  ever  hear  of  such  a  thing  ?  Any  other 
man  would  either  have  given  up  the  job  or  have 
tried  to  make  the  Kellnerinn  run  away.  Any 
other  Kellnerinn  would  have  turned  her  back  or 
would  have  bolted  on  the  spot.  But  not  so  these 
two.  Belize  waited  until  his  lady  was  free,  and 
then  he  went  with  her  to  the  stone-cutter. 
There  they  seem  to  have  had  a  perfectly  unim- 
passioned  business  discussion.  I  should  judge 
that  none  of  them  were  given  to  superfluous 
words.  As  for  the  stone-cutter,  he  apparently 
jumped  at  the  chance.  All  he  held  out  for  was 
a  subsidy  larger  than  the  income  which  his  wife 
had  been  able  to  provide  for  him,  which  Belize 
was  ready  enough  to  grant — even  to  instant 
payment  of  the  first  installment. 

So  off  they  went  together,  Beauty  and  the 
Beast,  and  speedily  put  the  Balkans  between 
themselves  and  their  stone-cutter.  Who  doubt 
less  called  himself  a  very  lucky  fellow,  became 
more  of  a  stranger  to  his  profession  than  ever, 
and  kicked  his  heels  all  day  long  on  the  embank 
ments  of  the  Danube.  The  Kellnerintf,  is  the 
one  I  wonder  most  about,  though — Madame 
Belize,  as  they  called  her.  Was  she  really  in 
love  with  her  humpback?  Or  was  anybody 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  85 

better  than  the  stone-cutter?  At  all  events, 
Belize  had  no  occasion  to  regret  his  adventure. 
Not  only  did  Madame  turn  out  a  famous  cook, 
under  the  tutelage  of  Monsieur,  but  she  had 
ideas  of  her  own — from  Budapest.  And  what 
was  more,  she  attracted  custom  better  than 
the  sweetest  cakes  or  the  headiest  liqueurs  ever 
invented. 

Her  sphere,  however,  soon  became  too  nar 
row.  The  Chateaubriands  and  Amperes  so  in 
creased  in  number  that  Belize  moved  up  the  hill. 
Then  he  moved  again,  and  established  branches, 
and  finally  built  the  big  place  you  all  know. 
That  extraordinary  trip  to  Budapest  was  liter 
ally  the  making  of  him.  He  grew  so  rich  that 
he  couldn't  possibly  use  all  his  money  in  sweets. 
He  began  to  buy  houses  about  here  in  town.  He 
also  picked  up  estates  on  the  Bosphorus  and  at 
the  islands. 

And  it  all  began  with  a  Kellnerin$!  Except 
for  the  bargain  with  the  stone-cutter  there  was 
never  anything  questionable.  And  the  open 
ness  of  that  bargain  put  it  by  itself.  The  thing 
was  merely  that  Madame's  charm  threw  the 
balance  on  the  side  of  success. 

She  naturally  withdrew  from  the  shop  by  the 
time  they  reached  the  top  of  the  hill.  They 
began  the  house  then.  One  could  rather  tell  a 
good  deal  from  that,  you  know.  There  was 


86  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

nothing  like  it  in  Pera.    But  they  had  only  just 
moved  in  when  Belize  died. 
He  left  everything  to  her. 

IV 

I  imagine  old  Belize  never  did  much  in  the 
social  line,  even  after  he  had  money.  He  was 
too  much  patisseur.  And  then,  of  course,  there 
was  his  deformity.  But  Madame,  after  a  con 
siderable  period  of  widowhood,  seems  gradually 
to  have  enlarged  her  borders.  Indeed,  she  could 
scarcely  have  avoided  it.  You  can  easily  see 
that  by  that  time  she  was  very  much  in  the 
nature  of  a  grande  dame.  She  was  richer  than 
anybody  else,  and  if  she  had  the  patisserie 
against  her  she  had  for  her  the  famous  charm. 
Moreover,  with  Belize  out  of  the  way,  she  nat 
urally  made  a  very  different  pair  of  sleeves. 
And  no  one  could  accuse  our  dear  Pera  of  being 
too  squeamish  as  to  pedigrees!  So  Madame 
seems  gradually  to  have  gone  into  the  world. 
It  was  then  really  that  Missiri  came  on  the 
tapis.  He  was  one  of  the  original  Chateau- 
briands  of  Galata,  as  I  have  said,  and  later 
seems  to  have  stood  sponsor  for  Madame  Belize 
in  society.  So  our  Kettnerimi,  having  begun 
her  career  by  an  apparently  unpromising  mar 
riage  to  a  drunken  stone-cutter  of  Budapest, 
ended  by  becoming  the  queen  of  Pera. 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  87 

And  then,  if  you  please,  the  stone-cutter 
turned  up!  It  was  quite  too  dreadful.  He  be 
longed  to  a  period  so  remote  that  they  had  for 
gotten  all  about  him.  He  had  never  given  a 
sign,  and  Belize  had  left  no  directions  about  the 
subsidy.  They  therefore  concluded  that  the 
man  was  otherwise  disposed  of.  He,  however, 
was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  think  of  dying 
with  a  draft  coming  to  him  once  a  month  as 
regularly  as  the  moon.  Accordingly,  when  it 
stopped  he  decided  to  look  into  things. 

He  happened  to  choose  a  highly  melodramatic 
moment  for  so  doing.  You  should  have  heard 
the  old  man !  Madame  Belize  was  giving  a  great 
party.  The  old  man  was  major-domo  then,  and 
when  he  spied  this  long  fellow  whom  anybody 
would  have  known  for  a  peasant  endimanche, 
he  guessed  at  once.  He  tried  to  send  the  man 
away,  but  the  stone-cutter  would  not  be  sent. 
On  the  contrary,  he  succeeded  in  slipping  into 
the  house.  There  was  something  like  a  scram 
ble  up  the  stairs,  the  Hungarian  first  and  the 
servants  after.  At  the  top  stood  Madame 
Belize,  receiving  her  guests.  Missiri  stood  near 
her,  as  master  of  ceremonies,  and  beyond  them 
the  great  hall  was  crowded. 

Well,  there  was  the  scramble  up  the  stairs 
and  people  pressed  to  see  what  it  was.  And  then 
the  Hungarian  stopped.  He  caught  sight  of 


88  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

Madame  Belize,  in  the  wonder  of  her  silks  and 
her  jewels  and  her  beauty.  He  caught  sight  of 
Madame  Belize,  whom  he  had  known  as  a  peas 
ant  girl  on  the  Danube,  whom  more  than  once 
he  had  beaten.  And  he  laughed.  As  for 
Madame  Belize,  she  never  stirred  except  to  turn 
her  head  upon  the  peasant  in  all  her  splendour 
and  to  order  the  servants  away. 

"What  do  you  want  ?"  she  asked,  very  gently. 

"Money !"  replied  the  stone-cutter.  "I  got  no 
more,  and  I  came  to  see  about  it.  I  see !" 

And  he  laughed  again.  He,  too,  was  a  type — 
the  stone-cutter.  At  this  Missiri  stepped  for 
ward  angrily.  They  had  been  speaking  in  their 
own  language,  of  course,  and  no  one  understood 
— almost  no  one. 

"Who  is  this  fellow?"  cried  out  Missiri.  "Let 
me  throw  him  downstairs  if  the  servants 
won't!" 

Madame  Belize  turned  to  him  and  smiled 
faintly.  She  turned  to  them  all. 

"No,"  she  said.  "He  is  my  husband.  He 
used  to  beat  me.  I  pay  him  not  to.  Excuse  me 
a  moment  while  I  get  him  the  money.  I  owe 
him  for  several  months."  She  made  a  deep 
courtesy,  bowing  her  jewelled  head  with  that 
faint  smile  of  hers.  Then  she  said  something 
to  the  stone-cutter.  And  through  a  lane  of 
satins  and  uniforms  he  followed  her  away. 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  89 

You  can  just  imagine!  Things  happen  in 
Pera  to  make  your  hair  stand  on  end.  But 
things  don't  happen  like  that,  at  balls.  And 
nobody  had  known  about  Madame  Belize.  You 
see,  the  patisseur  had  not  .taken  them  into  his 
confidence.  So  they  began  tumbling  down  those 
stairs  faster  than  the  stone-cutter  had  tumbled 
up.  You  should  have  heard  the  old  man!  He 
shed  tears  of  fury  as  he  told  me — years  after 
ward,  too. 

"She !"  he  cried.  "She  who  never  harmed  a 
creature,  who  was  better  than  an  angel,  who 
did  not  even  leave  a  husband  that  beat  her  until 
he  sent  her  away  for  the  money  it  would  bring 
him!  She,  around  whose  table  they  had 
crowded  like  a  pack  of  hungry  curs,  insulted  by 
those " 

It  would  hardly  do  for  me  to  repeat  the  epi 
thets  which  he  applied  to  the  society  of  which 
you  are  ornaments  so  conspicuous !  But  it  was 
too  good  a  chance  for  them  to  prove  the  delicacy 
of  their  sensibilities.  Once  the  first  made  for 
the  door,  the  rest  followed  as  if  the  plague  were 
in  the  house. 

Madame  Belize  came  back  in  the  midst  of  it. 
The  stone-cutter  was  still  with  her.  No  one 
ever  knew  just  what  passed  between  them.  It 
was  something,  however,  which  made  him  less 
jaunty  than  before.  She  took  her  place  at  the 


90  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

head  of  the  stairs  and  kept  him  beside  her, 
watching  the  people  go.  They  would  rather 
have  jumped  from  the  windows  than  pass  be 
fore  her,  the  old  man  said.  For  all  their  haugh 
tiness,  they  were  afraid  of  that  strange  smile 
of  hers.  They  pushed  by  without  so  much  as  a 
look — most  of  them.  As  for  her,  she  watched 
until  they  were  all  gone — even  Missiri.  He  lin 
gered  a  moment,  to  be  sure,  with  his  eyes  on 
the  two  of  them.  But  at  last  he  bolted  like  the 
others,  leaving  Madame  and  her  stone-cutter 
alone. 

They  looked  at  each  other. 

"You  see !"  she  said.  "They  have  gone.  They 
are  afraid  of  you." 

He  laughed  again.    But  she  stopped  him. 

"And  now  you  can  go,  too.  This  is  my  house, 
you  know." 

At  this  he  stared  about  again,  and  exclaimed : 

"Ah,  you  are  afraid  of  me,  like  the  rest !" 

She  smiled.  "Afraid?  I  think  I  know  you 
too  well.  Besides,  what  more  can  you  do  ?  They 
will  never  come  back.  It  is  only,  you  see,  that 
everything  is  finished.  Good-bye." 

They  looked  into  each  other's  eyes,  and  that 
which  the  stone-cutter  saw  made  him  start 
slowly  down  the  stairs.  After  a  few  steps  he 
stopped,  as  if  he  would  have  gone  back.  But 
her  eyes  were  still  too  much  for  him.  Once 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  91 

more  he  turned  from  them  and  went  on,  out  of 
the  house.    She  never  saw  him  again. 


The  old  man  said  that  she  stood  there  a  long 
time,  alone,  looking  down  the  empty  stairs — 
the  servants  not  daring  to  stir.  Then  finally 
she  called  them  all  before  her,  to  the  last  scul 
lion  and  stable-boy,  there  below  her  on  the 
steps.  And  she  spoke  to  them. 

"I  have  made  a  mistake,"  she  said.  "I  want 
to  tell  you  what  it  was,  because  there  is  no  one 
else  I  can  tell.  My  mistake  was  this,  that  I  did 
not  explain.  I  did  not  think  to  tell  people  what 
I  tell  you  now :  that  I  used  to  be  a  poor  peasant 
girl  in  Hungary,  poorer  than  any  of  you;  that 
I  married  a  handsome  young  stone-cutter  and 
went  to  Budapest;  that  we  grew  tired  of  each 
other;  that  he,  because  he  was  tired  of  me, 
began  to  drink;  that  I,  because  I  was  tired  of 
him,  became  a  servant  in  a  cafe;  that  there  I 
met  Monsieur  Belize,  who  offered  to  take  me 
away  and  make  me  happy;  that  when  my  hus 
band  agreed  I  came.  Perhaps  I  thought  they 
knew — that  Monsieur  Belize  had  told  them.  At 
any  rate,  I  did  not  mean  to  deceive  them.  When 
people  came  to  me  I  thought  it  was  because 
they  liked  to.  I  thought  it  was  more  to  be,  than 
to  say  or  to  do.  But  it  is  not  enough.  And  now 


92  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

for  my  mistake  I  must  pay.  I  have  already  be 
gun,  you  see,  to  pay.  My  friends  have  all  gone. 
They  will  never  come  back.  You  will  want  to 
go,  too,  when  you  hear  what  they  say.  This 
has  become  a  house  of  scandal.  It  will  be  hard 
for  you  to  get  other  places  if  people  know  that 
you  come  from  here.  You  will  not  care  to  tell 
them  that  you  serve  a  woman  like  me.  And 
then,  of  course,  it  will  be  different  here  after 
this.  There  will  be  no  more  music  and  danc 
ing.  You  will  find  it  very  dull.  So  I  dismiss 
you  all.  I  will  see  that  none  of  you  suffer 
because  of  the  suddenness  of  my  decision.  I 
thank  you  all  for  what  you  have  done  for  me. 
Good-night." 

And  with  that  she  left  them  staring  at  each 
other  on  the  stairs. 

What  do  you  think  of  that,  eh  ?  It's  the  kind 
of  thing  that  happens  only  in  feuilletons — or  in 
Constantinople.  My  old  man  didn't  make  it  up, 
you  know.  He  wasn't  that  kind.  If  he  had 
been  he  might  have  made  another  side  of  the 
affair  a  little  clearer.  For  I  don't  suppose 
Madame  Belize  really  regretted  what  she  had 
done — in  leaving  Budapest,  that  is — or  that  she 
had  any  idea  of  giving  such  an  impression.  And 
of  course  nobody  else  really  cared,  here  of  all 
places  in  the  world.  Somebody  started  that 
famous  stampede  and  the  rest  lost  their  heads 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  93 

like  sheep.  What  Madame  Belize  must  have 
minded  was  the  stampede.  At  all  events  that 
party,  quite  as  Madame  Belize  had  prophesied 
to  the  stone-cutter,  was  the  end  of  everything. 
The  queen  of  Pera  was  deposed  in  a  day  and 
another  reigned  in  her  stead.  But  how  they 
must  have  ached  to  go  back! 

I  have  no  idea,  either,  that  in  that  business  of 
the  servants  Madame  Belize  intended  a  coup 
de  theatre.  It  was  merely,  so  far  as  I  could 
make  out,  that  she  was  the  most  direct  creature 
in  the  world.  But  of  course  she  could  have  done 
nothing  cleverer  to  keep  them.  They  had 
adored  her  before;  what  could  they  do  after? 
A  few  of  them  naturally  did  leave  in  time,  for 
one  reason  or  another.  At  the  moment,  though, 
or  rather  the  next  day,  they  waited  on  her  in  a 
deputation,  with  the  old  man  at  their  head,  and 
vowed  eternal  fidelity  in  a  way  that  seems  to 
have  affected  her  very  much.  So  she  kept  them 
all  on,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  there  was  noth 
ing  left  for  three  quarters  of  them  to  do.  It  was 
to  give  them  occupation,  really,  that  she  began 
some  of  the  strange  things  she  did. 

For  myself,  I  rather  wondered  why  she  didn't 
go  away.  You  can  easily  imagine  that  to  have 
your  visiting  list  wiped  clean,  from  one  day  to 
the  other,  might  lend  attractions  to  a  voyage  of 
discovery.  She  might  have  moved  to  Paris  or 


94  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

Rome,  and  who  would  have  cared  what  these 
twopenny  half-breeds  said  in  Constantinople? 
But  that  was  one  of  the  things  I  couldn't  get, 
directly,  from  the  old  man.  It  may  have  been 
her  pride,  or  perhaps  she  didn't  know  that 
Rome  and  Paris  existed!  Or — what?  How 
ever,  she  had  affairs  to  attend  to,  and  that  gave 
her  something  to  do.  She  made  no  bones  about 
going  out — for  business,  or  to  drive.  I  had  that 
from  others  too.  They  used  to  meet  her  on  the 
Grande  Rue  or  along  the  quays,  ignoring  the 
world  as  completely  as  the  world  ignored  her. 
She  even  kept  on  with  her  modistes,  and  went 
about  in  the  most  wonderful  gowns — with  no 
one  but  servants  to  see  them. 

But  as  time  went  on  she  kept  more  and  more 
to  her  own  little  world,  and  gradually  came  to 
confine  her  excursions  to  her  own  grounds. 
The  old  man  said  she  would  drive  solemnly 
round  and  round  them  in  her  smartest  vic 
toria,  with  footman  and  everything,  bowing 
to  the  gardeners  as  if  they  had  been  grand 
viziers.  She  liked,  too,  to  go  to  the  belvedere  at 
the  top  of  the  house.  You  could  simply  see 
everything  from  there.  When  she  came  down 
she  would  say  that  she  had  been  seeing  the 
world !  For  the  rest,  she  never  made  any  fuss. 
Except  for  the  solitude,  no  one  would  have 
guessed  that  anything  had  happened.  She  kept 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  95 

the  place  up  just  the  same  as  ever.  And  that 
must  have  been  quite  a  job,  you  know.  You 
have  no  idea  what  can  be  made  out  of  cakes  and 
liqueurs.  The  house  was  somewhat  on  the  scale 
of  Beylerbey  Palace.  And  every  night,  the  old 
man  said,  as  if  she  expected  the  diplomatic 
corps  and  a  prince  of  the  blood,  she  filled  it  with 
candles  and  flowers. 

What  that  solitude  must  have  been  it  is  diffi 
cult  to  imagine.  You  see,  she  hadn't  so  much 
as  a  poor  relation,  and  if  Belize  had  any  they 
dropped  her  like  everybody  else.  I  gathered 
that  they  were  all  rather  put  to  it,  sometimes, 
to  make  the  thing  go.  As,  for  instance,  when 
Madame  Belize  elected  to  give  great  parties — to 
herself — with  an  orchestra  playing  waltzes  in 
the  empty  ballroom.  There  must  have  been 
clearnesses  of  vision  in  her,  and  delicacies  of 
imagination,  which  from  the  very  beginning 
had  made  her  do  the  unexpected  thing.  So 
when  it  comes  to  the  matter  of  the  mirrors, 
how  are  you  to  say  whether  it  was  the  conceit 
of  a  mind  sadly  whimsical,  or  of  one  already 
touched  by  its  tragedy?  She  began  with  the 
grand  stairway.  It  was  where  she  had  last 
seen  people  in  the  house,  you  remember.  Then 
she  did  the  halls,  and  finally  the  rooms.  She 
said  it  gave  her  company! 

I  asked  the  old  man  about  the  two  chambers 


96  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

in  green  damask.    He  looked  at  me  as  if  I  had 
made  an  indelicate  allusion. 

"Ah !"  he  exclaimed.  "Those  were  her  own." 
He  set  it  forth,  on  the  whole,  very  well.  You 
could  quite  see  it  all — the  empty  house,  the 
lonely  woman,  the  multiplying  mirrors.  I  don't 
see  how  she  stood  such  a  wraith  of  a  life.  For 
that  matter,  I  don't  see  how  the  servants  stood 
it.  But  they  simply  worshipped  her — I  don't 
know  like  what.  The  only  thing  she  required 
of  them  was  to  be  gentle.  If  she  ever  knew  of 
their  quarrelling  or  misnaming  each  other— 
which  even  servants  will  do — she  would  have 
them  up  and  tell  them  they  lived  in  a  glass 
house:  they  must  not  throw  stones.  .  .  . 

Just  fancy  it  all!  From  that  world  outside 
where  she  had  played  such  a  part,  where  she 
had  played  so  many  parts,  not  a  creature  but 
the  dressmaker  now  came  near  her.  And  there 
in  her  great  house  of  glass  she  lived  alone,  with 
her  shadows  and  her  memories.  And  every 
night,  in  all  her  jewels,  with  the  liveried  foot 
men  all  in  line,  she  would  dine  by  herself,  be 
tween  the  million  repetitions  of  her  that  faded 
away  in  the  candlelight;  and  she  would  rustle 
away  through  those  strange  silent  rooms,  look 
ing  about  into  the  mirrors  for  the  faces  that 
were  not  there. 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  97 

VI 

But  it  is  time  I  mentioned  Missiri.  If  I 
haven't  done  so  before  it  is  because  the  part  he 
plays  is  almost  as  detached  from  the  Madame 
Belize  of  Pera  as  was  Belize  himself  from  the 
Kellnerinn  of  Budapest.  I  told  you  that  after 
that  famous  party  no  one  ever  went  back.  It  is 
virtually  true,  and  for  a  long  time  it  was  act 
ually  true.  At  last,  however,  one  of  them  did 
go  back.  For  Missiri  Bey,  as  the  old  man  very 
truly  remarked,  would  do  anything.  He  had 
been  of  the  stampede,  you  know;  but  he  had 
been  the  last,  and  he  had  hesitated  before  posi 
tively  going  out  of  the  door.  He  could  bank  on 
that,  you  see!  So  after  a  while  he  began  by 
sending  flowers.  He  continued  by  carrying 
them.  He  ended  by  taking  them  in.  And 
Madame  Belize,  of  whom  no  one  could  ever  pre 
dict  what  she  would  do,  received  him  as  if  they 
had  parted  the  day  before.  She  didn't  fall  on 
his  neck,  but  neither  did  she  slam  the  door  in 
his  face. 

The  upshot  of  it  all  seemed  to  be  that  Missiri 
became  a  regular  visitor  and  was  occasionally 
asked  to  dine.  That,  however,  was  as  far  as  he 
got.  If  he  hoped  to  marry  his  hostess,  as  he 
doubtless  did,  I  can  inform  you  here  and  now 
that  he  never  realized  the  hope.  And  if  he 
thought  that  he  could  make  her  forget  the 


98  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

stampede  and  be  grateful  for  a  friend,  he  mis 
judged  alike  the  quality  of  her  memory  and  of 
her  friendship.  I  don't  know  whether  she  ever 
guessed  what  the  servants  knew  from  their  fel 
low  menials  in  Pera — that  he  took  no  pains  to 
conceal  from  the  public  his  assiduity  at  her 
door,  and  that  by  means  of  the  stories  which  he 
allowed  to  circulate  unchallenged  his  vanity 
made  good  outside  her  house  the  losses  it  sus 
tained  within.  The  gossips  had  capital  to  begin 
with,  and  they  naturally  found  it  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world  to  put  it  at  interest.  But  in 
spite  of  the  flowers  and  the  dinners  and  every 
thing  else,  Missiri  never  got  a  step  farther  than 
he  did  in  the  old  patisserie  of  Galata.  Which 
made  what  happened  in  the  end  all  the  more 
extraordinary. 

It  may  not  strike  you  that  way,  but  what  I 
could  make  out  of  the  slenderness  of  the  rela 
tion  between  Madame  Belize  and  Missiri  seemed 
to  me  one  of  the  most  characteristic  touches  of 
the  story.  He  wasn't  clever  enough  to  see,  when 
she  let  him  come  back,  how  little  he  counted. 
He  simply  made  no  difference  one  way  or  the 
other.  He  could  not  change  anything.  He  could 
only  help  her  out  with  the  mirrors.  It  was  all 
very  well  to  fix  up  herself  and  her  house  for 
parties,  but  where  were  the  uniforms  ?  Whereas 
with  Missiri !  At  any  rate,  the  old  man 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  99 

told  me  some  rather  queer  things.  They  used 
to  hear  her  talking  to  herself,  and  sometimes 
they  saw  her,  through  the  doors,  courtesying 
and  making  signs — to  the  mirrors.  It  rather 
gave  them  the  creeps.  When  they  were  in  the 
room  with  her,  though,  she  was  always  per 
fectly  straight  in  her  head.  At  least  the  old 
man  wouldn't  admit  anything  else.  And  all  this 
went  on  for  years.  Madame  Belize  had  been 
young  when  she  came  to  Constantinople.  She 
must  have  been  nearer  forty  than  thirty  when 
Belize  died.  She  grew  old  alone  in  her  house  of 

glass.  And  then !  The  end  was  quite  of  a 

piece  with  the  beginning. 

One  night  Madame  Belize  was  at  dinner, 
decolletee  and  jewelled  as  always,  with  her  peo 
ple  waiting  on  her.  Suddenly  she  began  to 
stare  at  the  wall  in  front  of  her.  "Who  is  that  ?" 
she  demanded  in  a  queer  tone. 

"It  is  only  one  of  the  men,  Madame,  passing 
the  door  behind  you,"  answered  the  old  man. 

She  insisted,  nevertheless,  on  going  over  to 
the  mirror. 

"There  is  no  one,  Madame,"  the  old  man  as 
sured  her  again,  a  little  uneasy.  But  she  called 
for  candles,  and  had  a  couple  of  footmen  hold 
them  up  behind  her  while  she  peered  into  the 
glass.  The  business  began  to  get  on  their 
nerves.  They  didn't  know  what  she  would  do 


100  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

next.  As  for  Madame,  what  she  did  next  was 
to  say : 

"Ah  no;  there  is  no  one.  Only  I — I 

Bring  me  more  candles  so  that  I  can  see." 

She  made  them  do  it,  if  you  please,  while  she 
looked  at  herself,  turning  this  way  and  that. 
She  looked  at  her  faded  hair,  at  the  wrinkles 
about  her  eyes  and  mouth,  at  her  shoulders 
shrunken  beneath  their  jewels,  at  her  thin  fin 
gers  with  their  heavy  rings.  Then  she  began 
to  laugh,  while  the  footmen  grew  white  behind 
her  with  the  candles. 

"Don't  be  afraid !"  she  exclaimed.  "There  is 
no  one !  It  is  only  I !  There  is  never  any  one ! 
Always  I,  I,  I!"  And  she  laughed  again. 

It  must  have  been  rather  horrid,  you  know — 
in  the  big,  dim,  twinkling  house.  They  were 
all  scared  out  of  their  boots. 

"Are  you  faint,  Madame?"  asked  the  old 
man.  "Will  you  have  some  wine?" 

"No,"  she  said.  "I  am  only  old.  We  have 
played  a  long  time.  Call  my  maid.  I  am  going 
upstairs." 

They  took  her  upstairs,  and  she  never  came 
down  again.  She  didn't  seem  particularly  ill — 
at  first.  She  was  merely  feeble.  Nothing,  how 
ever,  could  induce  her  to  leave  her  own  rooms. 
She  suddenly  had  a  horror  of  the  mirrors.  She 
said  there  were  too  many  people  in  them.  ...  .  >< 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  101 

When  Missiri  heard  about  it,  as  he  very  soon 
did,  he  of  course  waxed  doubly  attentive.  He 
sent  a  message  and  a  flower  every  minute.  She 
wouldn't  see  him,  though — not  even  while  she 
was  able  to  be  about  and  in  her  boudoir.  It  was 
the  one  part  of  the  house  to  which  she  had 
never  admitted  him.  But  there  came  a  day! 
It  was  not  long  after  she  had  taken  to  her  bed. 
It  was  the  day  when  the  doctor  let  them  send 
for  the  priest.  The  doctor  was  Missiri's.  I 
suppose  the  priest  was  too.  The  servants  were 
afraid  of  them  all,  but  they  were  off  their  heads 
with  consternation,  and  there  was  not  a  single 
friend  to  come  near  the  woman.  Not  one !  The 
doctor  had  done  what  he  could.  The  priest  had 
performed  his  part.  Then  Missiri's  turn  came. 
And  I  remember  now  the  old  man's  exclama 
tion  : 

"Ah,  if  he  had  had  an  onion  for  a  heart  he 
could  not  have  done  it !" 

For  the  first  time,  for  the  very  first  time, 
when  there  was  no  one  to  keep  him  out,  Missiri 
went  into  the  green  boudoir.  He  passed  on  into 
the  darkened  bedroom.  Madame  Belize  had 
been,  they  thought,  unconscious.  But  at  his  ap 
proach  she  opened  her  eyes.  And  she  gave  him 
a  look! 

"Missiri  Bey,"  she  asked  in  her  dying  voice, 
"what  are  you  doing  here  ?" 


102  THE  GLASS  HOUSE     • 

He  stopped  a  minute,  the  old  man  said,  took  a 
paper  from  his  pocket,  and  went  nearer. 

"I  come  for  your  affairs,  dear  Madame,"  he 
answered.  "You  have  been  indisposed  for  some 
time,  you  know,  and  matters  press.  If  you 

could  give  me  a  moment Then  I  will  go  at 

once." 

He  advanced  a  step.  She  kept  her  eyes  on 
him — terrible  eyes,  the  old  man  said — and  he 
had  the  courage  to  face  it  out.  At  last  she 
uttered  strangely:  "Ah,  it  is  the  receipt,  I 
suppose." 

"Yes,  dear  Madame,"  said  Missiri,  approach 
ing  her  with  the  paper.  "It  is  the  receipt.  If 
you  would  be  so  good  as  to  sign " 

"Sign?"  she  demanded.  "Do  I  pay  and  sign 
too?" 

"Yes,"  he  had  the  assurance  to  reply — with 
out  any  idea,  of  course,  what  she  meant.  "Let 
me  assist  you."  He  was  at  the  bedside  now, 
and  he  made  as  if  to  support  her. 

"Stop !"  she  cried.  "Do  not  dare  to  touch  me ! 
Give  them  to  me!"  Waving  him  imperiously 
away,  she  raised  herself  in  the  bed  and  took  the 
pen  which  he  dipped  for  her.  But  before 
writing  at  the  place  he  indicated  she  looked  at 
him  again.  And  that  time,  the  old  man  said, 
he  began  to  look  green.  However,  she  signed. 
Then  she  pointed  to  the  door.  "Go!"  she 


THE  GLASS  HOUSE  103 

gasped.  "Go  back  to  them!  They  gave,  and 
they  made  me  pay!  And  I  have  paid — all! 
There  is  no  more  they  can  ask !  Now  let  me  die 
in  peace!" 

She  watched  Missiri  out  of  the  room.  Then 
she  fell  back.  She  never  spoke  again. 

VII 

The  old  man's  story  made  an  extraordinary 
impression  upon  me.  It  wasn't  so  much  the 
way  he  told  it,  you  know,  or  that  it  had  any 
particular  sequence  in  itself.  I  don't  know — it 
may  have  been  the  empty  hall  with  its  receding 
reflections.  One  thought  of  what  the  mirrors 
had  seen.  One  caught  faint  shadows  of  it,  far 
away,  at  the  end  of  the  vista.  It  was  uncanny. 
And  one  had  such  a  sense  of  the  queerness, 
here,  of  everything — that  that  peasant  girl, 
without  lifting  a  finger,  could  have  had  all  those 
things  piled  into  her  lap,  and  in  the  end  could 
have  been  robbed  of  them  all. 

"He  wants  to  sell  it,  eh  ?"  I  asked  after  a  long 
pause. 

"Yes,"  said  the  old  man.  "Do  you  wonder?" 
Then:  "The  furniture,  you  see,  he  has  taken 
away." 

I  waited  a  moment. 

"Did  he  get  everything  ?"  I  asked.  "Even  the 
patisserie  ?" 


104  THE  GLASS  HOUSE 

"Even  the  patisserie!  Why  not?  Who  was 
there  to  say  no?  He  wears  mourning,  and  the 
ladies  condole  with  him!  Wait;  you  will  see. 
Here  he  is.  He  knew  of  your  appointment." 

As  we  stood  there  a  sound  of  steps  came 
slowly  up  the  stair.  We  waited,  our  eyes  upon 
the  landing.  But  the  figure  that  mounted  into 
sight  was  not  the  one  we  expected,  He  was  per 
haps  more  white-haired  than  Missiri,  yet  taller 
and  better-looking.  What  particularly  attracted 
my  attention,  however,  was  the  oddity  of  his 
dress — his  peaked  hat  and  his  tasselled  top- 
boots.  He  returned  my  regard  with  equal 
curiosity. 

As  for  my  companion,  he  made  at  first  not 
the  slightest  sign  of  recognition.  Then  he  sud 
denly  clutched  my  arm,  and  a  strange  light 
broke  upon  his  face. 

"The  stone-cutter!"  he  cried. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

Here,  forsooth,  is  the  home  of  all  the  paintpots,  said  I. 
— F.  Nietzsche:  THUS  SPAKE  ZARATHUSTRA. 


ON  ALMOST  any  day  of  the  year  you  may 
look  south  from  Constantinople,  across 
the  Sea  of  Marmora,  at  a  broken  line  of 
blue  hills  that  remind  you  a  little  of  the  moun 
tains  bounding  the  Venetian  lagoon.  Those  blue 
hills,  or  the  clearest  and  easternmost  of  them, 
belong  to  a  high  wooded  promontory  that 
divides  the  Asiatic  end  of  the  Marmora  into 
two  unequal  gulfs.  Along  the  north  shore  of 
the  upper  and  longer  gulf  runs  the  Bagdad 
railway — by  which,  no  doubt,  you  will  one  day 
travel  in  your  international  sleeping  car  from 
London  to  Delhi.  And,  having  passed  the  hill 
top  grave  of  Hannibal,  you  will  see  your  last  of 
blue  water  at  Nicomedia,  which  Diocletian 
made  for  a  moment  the  capital  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  Not  far  from  the  south  shore  of  the 
lower  gulf  lies,  at  the  foot  of  the  Bithynian 
Olympus,  the  old  city  of  Broussa,  the  first  capi 
tal  of  the  Turks  and  the  Pantheon  of  the  found- 

105 


106     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

ers  of  their  power.  But  no  imperial  tradition 
and  no  modern  highway  links  to  the  rest  of  the 
world  the  intermediate  promontory.  It  is  true 
that  emperors  did  resort  of  old  to  certain  hot 
springs  in  a  fold  of  the  blue  hills — which  turn 
green  as  you  approach  them.  A  persevering 
company  even  tries  to-day,  without  too  flatter 
ing  success,  to  rehabilitate  that  fallen  Asiatic 
Carlsbad.  There  is  no  reason  why  the  com 
pany  should  not  in  the  end  succeed.  The  blue- 
green  hills  are  in  themselves  a  romantic  enough 
piece  of  nature,  pointing  into  their  bright  east- 
Mediterranean  lagoon.  Above  the  Gulf  of  Nico- 
media  they  rise  the  more  abruptly,  the  hills, 
and  are  more  thickly  wooded.  The  other  side, 
protected  from  Black  Sea  winds  and  open  to  all 
the  sun  of  the  south,  is  a  little  Riviera  of  olive, 
cypress,  and  vine.  But  people  do  not  forget  that 
brigands  have  been  known  to  amuse  themselves 
by  carrying  off  the  clients  of  the  baths.  And 
other  resorts  are  more  modern  in  their  appoint 
ments.  So  the  blue-green  hills,  although  in 
sight  of  the  world,  remain  out  of  it.  Not  quite 
wild  and  not  yet  civilized,  they  make  a  strange 
little  world  of  their  own  where  fragments  of 
wandering  races,  stubbornly  immiscible,  lodge 
scattered  and  uneasy  among  the  old  Greek 
ghosts  of  the  land. 

On  the  south  shore  of  this  peninsula,  not  far 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     107 

from  a  Turkish  village  that  is  half  lost  among 
immense  cypresses  and  plane  trees,  a  deserted 
garden  looks  across  the  Gulf  of  Moudania  at  the 
Asiatic  Olympus.  You  would  hardly  know  that 
a  garden  had  ever  been  there,  were  it  not  for  a 
tumble-down  little  kiosque  of  two  or  three 
rooms,  overlooking  the  beach,  such  as  the  Turks 
always  like  to  build  in  their  country  places. 
There  are  also  poppy-grown  fragments  of  wall 
and,  in  the  central  jungle  of  green,  the  ruins  of 
a  house — or  of  the  foundations  of  a  house.  But 
what  most  visibly  marks  the  spot  as  an  old 
pleasure  ground  is  a  great  bronze  giraffe  that 
lifts  its  awkward  neck  among  the  trees.  To  a 
foreigner,  indeed,  a  life-sized  image  of  a  giraffe 
might  not  suggest  a  garden.  The  Turks,  how 
ever,  regard  statuary  somewhat  as  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  do.  They  are  afraid  of  it.  When  they 
become  acquainted  with  European  gardens, 
therefore,  and  set  about  imitating  them,  they 
not  uncommonly  replace  the  classic  garden  god 
by  a  statue  of  an  animal.  So  it  is  that  that 
ungainly  bronze  giraffe,  made  in  Germany, 
stands  in  a  tangle  of  Turkish  green  on  an  old 
Greek  shore,  staring  strangely  across  its  little 
blue  sea  toward  the  country  of  Antinous. 

The  villagers  say,  now,  that  the  House  of  the 
Giraffe  would  still  be  standing,  and  that 
Nousret  Pasha  would  not  have  been  killed,  if  he 


108     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

had  listened  to  a  gypsy.  She  prophesied  to 
him  that  if  he  finished  the  house  it  would  burn 
to  the  ground  and  he  would  die.  But  he  was  not 
the  man,  Nousret  Pasha,  to  be  frightened  out  of 
a  thing  he  had  set  his  heart  upon — even  by  a 
gypsy  fortune  teller.  For  he  was  incredibly 
ignorant.  He  said  the  gypsy  would  have  made 
a  different  prophecy  if  he  had  given  her  what 
she  asked.  Moreover,  he  knew  well  enough  that 
nobody  wanted  him  to  live  there — although  he 
loved  the  place,  if  he  loved  anything.  He  was 
born  there,  and  passed  his  youth  there,  and 
made  a  reputation  there  as  a  pehlivan — a 
wrestler — and  had  been  one  of  those  who 
amused  themselves  by  carrying  off  the  clients 
of  the  baths  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountain. 
That  he  found  profitable  as  well  as  amusing. 

In  the  course  of  time,  however,  he  found  even 
more  profitable  and  considerably  safer  game  in 
Constantinople,  where  he  became  a  notorious 
figure  during  the  last  years  of  the  old  regime. 
He  was  a  huge  man  with  a  big  jaw  and  no  neck, 
and  beady  little  eyes  set  close  together.  He 
had  always  been  a  dandy.  In  his  second  period 
his  taste  ran  to  shrill  waistcoats,  lumpy  jew 
ellery,  and  unquenchable  perfumes.  He  used 
to  spend  a  good  part  of  his  time  driving  about 
Pera  in  a  gaudy  yellow  satin  victoria  that  was 
better  suited  to  a  comic  opera  queen  than  to  a 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     109 

dirty  ruffian  like  himself.  He  would  sit  up  very 
straight  in  the  middle  of  the  yellow  satin  seat, 
turning  his  beady  eyes  this  way  and  that  with 
out  moving  his  head.  Very  little  escaped  those 
beady  eyes.  And  if  they  happened  to  light  on 
anything  that  pleased  Nousret  Pasha,  why 
Nousret  Pasha  generally  ended  by  having  it. 
For  he  was  the  Sultan's  milk-brother.  His 
mother,  that  is,  had  been  the  Sultan's  nurse. 
Many  of  us,  no  doubt,  have  foster  brothers,  of 
whose  existence  we  are  less  rather  than  more 
definitely  aware.  Sultan  Hamid,  however,  was 
not  of  so  neglectful  a  disposition.  And  so, 
although  born  of  a  humble  family  of  peasants 
in  an  obscure  village  of  the  Marmora,  Nousret 
ended  by  becoming  a  Pasha,  and  the  pattern  of 
a  scoundrel — all  through  a  pretty  piece  of  Ori 
ental  sentiment. 

I  suppose  it  might  be  easy  to  become  the  pat 
tern  of  a  scoundrel  if  one  were  free  to  do  abso 
lutely  anything  that  came  into  one's  head.  The 
whole  trend  of  our  modern  world  has  been 
against  the  enjoyment  of  such  freedom.  Few 
people,  nowadays,  ever  have  a  chance  to  commit 
themselves.  A  great  artist  does,  in  his  way, 
and  perhaps  a  great  financier.  Certainly  the 
latter  has  a  greater  power  of  publishing  his  own 
bad  taste  or  of  tampering  with  other  lives  than 
a  modern  king.  Asia,  however,  despite  inev- 


110     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

liable  tendencies,  is  not  yet  the  modern  world. 
There  it  is  still  possible  for  a  man  to  do  just 
what  he  likes — the  corollary  being,  of  course, 
that  other  men  must  do  nothing  they  like.  At 
least  it  was  so  in  Turkey  under  Sultan  Abd-iil- 
Hamid  II,  whose  reign  was  a  legend  of  Boc- 
cacio  and  of  the  Arabian  Nights  woven  into 
one.  Under  the  shadow  of  so  great  a  tyrant 
little  tyrants  had  room  to  grow.  And  one  of 
them  was  he  who  built  the  House  of  the  Giraffe. 
It  was  incredible  how  many  people  Nousret 
Pasha  ruined  or  did  away  with,  how  he  robbed 
right  and  left,  and  went  into  every  imaginable 
form  of  rascality  that  promised  an  instant's 
amusement  or  a  para's  worth  of  gain.  Not  that 
his  requirements  were  as  a  usual  thing  so 
modest.  He  made  a  tremendous  income  simply 
out  of  blackmail,  threatening  to  send  the  Sultan 
such  and  such  reports  unless  such  and  such 
sums  were  forthcoming.  For  he  was  one  of  the 
Sultan's  most  indefatigable  spies.  The  Sultan 
liked  him  for  that ;  also  because  he  was  a  first- 
rate  shot.  He  was  uneasy,  Sultan  Hamid,  un 
less  he  had  such  a  man  near  him  when  he  went 
out  in  public.  He  often  called  Nousret  up  to 
the  Palace  to  give  exhibitions  of  his  prowess. 
Nousret  could  shoot  a  five  piastre  piece  from 
between  a  man's  fingers  at  fifty  yards,  or  flick 
the  ashes  oif  his  cigarette.  And  sometimes  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     111 

Sultan  hinted  that  if  the  shot  went  a  little  wild 
no  one  would  hold  Nousret  Pasha  responsible. 
Nousret  Pasha  had  learned  to  shoot  in  his 
native  mountains.  He  had  always  been  pas 
sionately  fond  of  hunting.  That  was  one  reason 
why  he  built  the  House  of  the  Giraffe.  He  kept 
any  number  of  horses  and  dogs  down  there. 
The  villagers  say  he  often  kept  bears  as  well, 
which  he  caught  as  cubs  in  the  mountains. 
When  they  got  too  big  he  would  set  the  dogs 
on  them.  He  liked  to  watch  the  poor  brutes 
being  torn  to  pieces.  Bears  and  dogs,  though, 
were  not  his  only  company  on  the  peninsula. 
He  often  took  visitors  down  to  stay  with  him. 
One  of  them  afterward  starred  in  the  cafes- 
chantant  of  Hungary  as  the  Princess  Nousret 
Pasha.  In  fact  it  was  rather  dangerous  to  de 
cline  an  invitation  to  the  House  of  the  Giraffe. 
One  young  woman  was  shot  because  she  did — 
she  and  her  mother  and  her  servant  and  her 
dog.  Nousret  Pasha  walked  into  the  house  one 
night  when  they  were  at  dinner  and  coolly 
potted  the  four  of  them.  And  no  one  dared  to 
raise  a  finger — simply  because  he  was  Nousret 
Pasha,  and  Nousret  Pasha  was  the  Sultan's 
milk-brother. 

II 

On  a  certain  summer  day  in  1908  Nousret 
Pasha  was  driving,  not  in  his  yellow  satin  vie- 


112     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

toria  but  in  a  smart  trap,  over  the  hills  on  the 
European  shore  of  the  Bosphorus.  He  was  be 
ing  driven,  that  is  to  say,  by  his  coachman  Ali. 
This  dark,  slight,  good-looking  wearer  of  a 
braided  black  livery  was,  although  the  Pasha 
never  put  it  to  himself  in  so  many  words,  the 
Pasha's  best  friend.  They  had  been  boys  to 
gether  in  the  Marmora,  they  had  hunted, 
wrestled,  and  kidnapped  together,  and  Nousret 
had  done  very  little  since  in  which  Ali  had  not 
had  a  part.  Yet,  from  Ali's  face,  you  would  not 
have  thought  so.  He  had  the  simple,  honest, 
serious  look  of  so  many  of  his  people.  And  cer 
tainly  he  was  by  nature  one  who  would  have 
done  the  Sultan  more  honour  as  a  milk-brother. 
But  because  Nousret  was  the  older  and  had 
always  been  the  leader,  and  because  Ali  had 
eaten  his  bread  for  so  many  years,  Ali  remained 
faithful  to  his  infamous  master  with  a  faith 
fulness  which  only  a  Turk  or  an  Albanian  can 
show. 

As  they  jolted  down  the  stony  road  that  leads 
from  the  top  of  the  hill  to  Stenia  Bay,  they 
passed  two  ladies  walking.  In  town  it  would 
not  have  been  easy  to  get  a  definite  impression 
of  two  promenading  Turkish  ladies;  but  being 
in  the  country  these  two  wore  veils  only  over 
their  hair,  and  no  enveloping  charshaf.  Nousret 
Pasha  accordingly  perceived,  being  a  connois- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     113 

seur  in  such  matters,  that  one  of  the  ladies  was 
extremely  handsome.  She  had  long  and  rather 
narrow  dark  eyes,  over  which  eyebrows  arched 
so  delicately  on  a  fair  skin  that  he  knew  they 
were  not  painted;  and  from  beneath  the  white 
veil  escaped  a  strand  or  two  of  wavy  hair  that 
had  in  it  a  reddish  glint.  The  second  prom- 
enader  was  apparently  the  servant  of  the  first, 
and  Nousret  Pasha  wasted  no  glances  on  her. 
Not  that  Nousret  Pasha  disdained  to  stoop  so 
low,  if  a  servant  were  worth  looking  at.  He 
immediately  nudged  Ali,  and  Ali  immediately 
turned  his  horses  around.  The  two  walkers 
betrayed  a  certain  surprise  at  seeing  the  trap  a 
second  time.  Nousret  Pasha  kept  his  beady 
eyes  on  them,  or  one  of  them,  as  he  went  by, 
and  for  some  distance  beyond.  He  then  sig 
nalled  Ali  to  turn  again.  But  before  this  grace 
ful  manoeuvre  was  completed  the  two  objectives 
of  it  disappeared  into  a  gateway. 

Nousret  Pasha  had  an  instant  of  surprise. 
Having  reached  the  same  gateway,  however,  he 
directed  Ali  to  stop.  An  Albanian  porter  came 
out,  thinking  a  visitor  had  arrived. 

"Pardon  me,"  said  Nousret  Pasha  politely, 
"but  I  am  not  quite  sure  where  I  am.  Can  you 
tell  me  whose  house  this  is?" 

The  porter  took  in  the  shining  trap,  the  trim 
coachman,  the  conspicuously  dressed  and  per- 


114     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

fumed  gentleman  who  accosted  him,  and  replied 
with  his  hands  respectfully  crossed  on  his 
girdle : 

"This,  Effendim,  is  the  house  of  Ahmed  Bey. 
But  he  is  not  at  home." 

"Ah!"  uttered  Nousret  Pasha,  fixing  his 
beady  eyes  on  an  underling  who  did  not  at  first 
sight  call  him  Pasha.  He  then  drew  out  with 
his  most  important  air  a  silk  pocketbook,  dif 
fusing  a  cloud  of  musk  as  he  did  so,  and  handed 
to  the  porter  a  large  printed  card.  "Give  the 
Bey  this."  He  lifted  his  chin,  to  ease  it  of  an 
uncomfortable  collar,  and  glanced  down  side 
ways  at  the  porter.  "Those  ladies  who  just 
went  in They  are ?" 

"It  is  the  family  of  the  Bey,"  replied  the  Al 
banian,  a  shade  more  gravely.  For  the  visitor 
had  transcended  the  limits  of  good  form. 

"H'm.  Just  tell  the  Bey  I  came."  And  drop 
ping  a  gold  piece  into  the  porter's  hand  Nousret 
Pasha  ordered  Ali  to  drive  on. 

Ill 

Ahmed  Bey,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  one  of 
the  last  people  in  Constantinople  upon  whom 
Nousret  Pasha  would  have  taken  the  trouble  to 
call.  He  was  too  honest  to  be  in  favour  at  court 
and  too  poor  to  be  worth  pillaging.  But  even 
such  a  man  might  have  his  possibilities,  it 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     115 

seemed.  Accordingly  when  Nousret  Pasha  got 
home  that  night  he  announced  to  his  wife  that 
she  was  to  go  to  Emirgyan  the  next  day  and  call 
on  Madam  Ahmed  Bey.  For  there  had  been 
something  in  those  long  eyes  under  their  arched 
eyebrows  that  made  him  think  this  a  case  to  go 
about  with  circumspection. 

As  for  Madam  Nousret  Pasha,  she  was  by  no 
means  unused  to  such  commands  from  her 
formidable  spouse.  She  had  led  a  somewhat 
varied  career  herself,  and  had  thereby  picked 
up  a  philosophy.  There  was  no  love  lost  be 
tween  her  and  Nousret  Pasha,  who  would  long 
ago  have  divorced  her  had  she  not  been  a 
present  from  the  Sultan.  She  was  one  of 
those  who,  wasting  their  sweetness  on  the 
desert  air  of  the  imperial  harem,  were  some 
times  given  away  in  compliment  or  punishment. 
So  she  lived  where  she  could  in  the  crannies  of 
her  husband's  whims.  And  she  duly  went  to 
call  on  Madam  Ahmed  Bey,  in  a  closed 
brougham,  with  a  black  eunuch  sitting  on  the 
box  as  if  to  guard  the  dearest  treasure  of  the 
Pasha's  heart. 

Madam  Ahmed  Bey  received  her  caller  po 
litely,  at  first  not  knowing  who  she  was.  But 
Madam  Ahmed  Bey  failed  to  return  the  call. 
Turkish  ladies  of  the  old  school  are  not  quite  so 
meticulous  on  such  points  as  European  ladies, 


116     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

however.  Nousret  Pasha,  furthermore,  could 
not  consider  himself  slighted  by  a  nobody  like 
Ahmed  Bey.  Madam  Nousret  Pasha  accord 
ingly  gave  a  party  at  her  own  country  house  in 
Bebek,  and  the  first  person  she  invited  was 
Madam  Ahmed  Bey.  Madam  Ahmed  Bey,  as  it 
happened,  was  otherwise  engaged  for  that  day. 
And  asked,  later,  to  set  her  own  day  for  coming 
to  Bebek,  she  replied  that  she  suffered  from  ill 
health  and  never  went  into  the  world. 

This  course  of  events  was  a  little  longer 
drawn  out  than  Nousret  Pasha  expected.  He 
had  grown  used,  among  his  own  people  at  least, 
to  have  every  one  come  when  he  whistled.  Who 
was  a  Madam  Ahmed  Bey  that  she  should 
refuse  the  advances  of  a  Madam  Nousret 
Pasha  ?  Yet  she  was,  her  course  of  action  only 
made  him  remember  the  more  vividly,  the  pos 
sessor  of  divinely  white  skin,  and  waving  hair 
of  red  glints,  and  eyebrows  inimitably  arched, 
and  long  dark  eyes  that  he  meant  to  look  into 
again.  And  he  was  a  hunter,  adept  in  all  cours- 
ings  and  doublings.  So  at  last  he  sent  word  to 
Ahmed  Bey,  who  had  only  returned  his  own 
card,  that  he  would  dine  at  Emirgyan  on  such 
and  such  an  evening.  In  the  East  one  may  do 
that — and  best  of  all  a  man  like  Nousret  Pasha. 
Nor  may  a  man  like  Ahmed  Bey  refuse  such  an 
invitation.  He  therefore  prepared  accordingly. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     117 

He  engaged  extra  cooks,  he  hired  dancing  girls 
and  dancing  boys  from  the  Jews  who  deal  in 
such  commodities,  and  he  caused  inquiry  to  be 
made  of  his  prospective  guest  as  to  what  other 
guests  should  be  invited. 

Nousret  Pasha  flatteringly  made  answer  that 
he  desired  to  dine  in  intimacy,  and  that  no  com 
pany  could  be  preferred  to  that  of  his  friend 
Ahmed  Bey. 

IV 

With  his  friend  Ahmed  Bey  he  consequently 
dined,  and  the  affair  went  better  than  he  ex 
pected.  Ahmed  Bey  seemed  to  wish  to  make  up 
for  his  wife's  coolness  toward  Madam  Nousret 
Pasha.  He  showed  Nousret  Pasha  his  garden, 
which,  having  been  inherited  from  grand 
fathers  and  great-grandfathers,  was  not  ill  to 
look  upon,  albeit  somewhat  wild  and  overgrown. 
He  then  took  Nousret  Pasha  into  a  wide  old 
wooden  house,  and  served  him,  with  appro 
priate  Oriental  apologies,  to  such  a  dinner  as 
Nousret  Pasha  knew  how  to  appreciate.  For 
although  it  was  becoming  increasingly  the 
fashion  to  dine  alia  franca,  what  Nousret  Pasha 
really  liked  was  to  dine  alia  turca.  He  had  sat 
too  long  on  the  floor  to  be  quite  comfortable  in 
a  chair.  The  steel  and  silver  of  a  European 
table  seemed  to  him  so  many  impediments  be- 


118     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

tween  good  things  and  his  enjoyment  thereof. 
And  he  infinitely  preferred  a  succulent  dish  of 
"The  Imam  Fainted"  or  "It  Pleased  The  Man- 
Slayer"  (i.  e.  the  Sultan)  to  all  their  juiceless 
roasts  and  pastries.  He  had  not  lost  his  neck 
for  nothing! 

One  feature  of  the  dinner,  it  is  true,  was  not 
altogether  Turkish.  Although  a  good  Mussel- 
man,  Nousret  Pasha,  to  the  knowledge  of  many, 
had  acquired  a  taste  for  alcohol.  Ahmed  Bey, 
therefore,  having  discreetly  hinted  that  there 
was  wine  in  the  house  for  medicinal  purposes, 
and  having  received  intimation  that  it  was 
always  well  to  forestall  the  disease  by  the 
remedy,  produced  bottles  to  which  his  guest 
did  due  honour.  The  host  afterward  asked  him 
self  if  he  had  made  a  mistake.  At  all  events, 
when  the  low  table  had  been  removed,  and  fin 
gers  and  lips  had  been  rinsed  in  a  trickle  of  per 
fumed  water  that  a  servant  poured  from  a  slim 
silver  jug  into  a  silver  basin  with  a  perforated 
cover,  Nousret  Pasha  had  so  little  forgotten 
what  he  came  for  that  he  turned  to  his  host  and 
said: 

"Ahmed  Bey,  we  are  becoming  more  and 
more  modern  as  we  grow  old.  Why  should  not 
your  wife  bring  in  the  coffee  ?" 

Ahmed  Bey  knew  that  the  Sultan's  milk- 
brother  could  go  far.  But  he  had  not  believed 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     119 

the  man  would  really  go  as  far  as  this,  in  the 
house  of  one  whose  bread  he  had  eaten. 

"My  Pasha,"  he  replied  gravely,  "I  am  very 
sorry,  but  my  wife  is  ill." 

"Ahmed  Bey,"  retorted  Nousret  Pasha,  "it  is 
not  necessary  to  lie  to  me.  Your  wife  is  not  ill. 
My  wife  has  seen  her — and  so  have  I!" 

Ahmed  Bey  swallowed  the  insult. 

"My  Pasha,"  he  persisted,  "it  is  some  days 
since  my  wife  had  the  honour  to  receive  Madam 
Nousret  Pasha.  I  swear  to  you  that  she  is  un 
able  to  come  into  this  room." 

The  two  eyed  each  other.  Nousret  Pasha  felt 
it  unnecessary  to  give  too  black  a  look,  for  the 
man  was  too  much  in  his  power.  Still,  the  look 
of  the  beady  eyes  was  not  pleasant,  nor  the 
words  that  followed : 

"Ahmed  Bey,  go  and  find  your  wife.  And 
tell  her  to  bring  her  lute.  It  is  good  to  have  a 
little  music  after  dinner — and  dancing." 

To  a  European  that  might  sound  simple 
enough,  for  a  European  is  proud  to  have  his 
wife  make  music  for  other  men,  or  even  to 
dance  for  them.  With  the  Turks,  however,  a 
woman  may  sing  and  dance  for  one  man  only. 
If  she  does  it  for  others  she  belongs  to  the  half 
world.  Nousret  Pasha  had  therefore  made  of 
Ahmed  Bey  the  demand  that  a  man  may  least 
accept  with  honour.  Yet  Ahmed  Bey  knew  with 


120     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

whom  he  had  to  deal,  and  how  much  depended 
on  what  passed  between  them.  He  knew,  too, 
that  Nousret  Pasha  had  had  wine.  And,  after 
all,  Nousret  Pasha  was  his  guest. 

"I  have  thought  of  music,  my  Pasha.  There 
are  girls  and  boys  waiting.  I  will  call  them." 
He  clapped  his  hands. 

A  servant  entered.  But  before  Ahmed  Bey 
could  give  the  order  Nousret  Pasha  got  up  and 
thundered : 

"Will  you  do  what  I  said,  or  shall  I  go 
myself?" 

For  a  second  Ahmed  Bey  would  have  thrown 
himself  on  the  man.  But  he  was  unarmed,  and 
he  knew  that  Nousret  Pasha  always  carried  a 
revolver  and  could  use  it  better  than  any  one. 
He  probably  would  like  nothing  better  than  to 
use  it  now.  And  then  what  would  be  gained? 
Ahmed  Bey  signed  for  the  servant  to  leave. 

"I  go,  my  Pasha,"  he  replied  at  length. 
"Kindly  have  patience  for  a  few  moments." 
And,  with  a  low  salaam,  he  went  out  of  the 
room. 

For  a  time  Nousret  Pasha  was  sufficiently 
amused.  It  always  amused  him  to  make  other 
people  do  what  he  wanted,  especially  when  they 
did  not  want  to.  The  dancers  amused  him,  too. 
The  boys  amused  him  more  than  the  girls,  for 
they  were  more  shameless  in  their  dancing  and 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     121 

less  like  bad  imitations  of  what  he  was  pres 
ently  to  see.  He  already  knew  most  of  the 
troupe.  They  sang  long  melancholy  songs,  ac 
companying  themselves  with  tambourines, 
while  one  boy  played  a  pipe  and  another  beat 
two  little  drums  made  out  of  earthen  jars  with 
skins  stretched  over  their  mouths.  They 
danced  long  dances,  the  slow  sensuous  dances 
of  the  East,  snapping  their  fingers  over  their 
heads  and  weaving  their  arms  to  and  fro.  The 
air,  meanwhile,  began  to  grow  heavy  with  the 
perfume  that  burned  in  a  brazier.  When 
Nousret  Pasha  was  pleased  with  the  performers 
he  gave  them  a  gold  piece  in  a  glass  of  mastic. 
But  he  began  to  be  impatient  to  see  Madam 
Ahmed  Bey  dance,  with  that  reddish  hair  fall 
ing  around  her  white  shoulders  and  her  long 
eyes  half  shut. 

He  clapped  his  hands  for  a  servant,  who  told 
him  that  Ahmed  Bey  was  almost  ready.  Let 
the  Pasha  have  a  moment's  more  patience — and 
in  the  meantime  take  wine.  The  Pasha  took 
wine.  But  it  only  increased  his  impatience,  for 
he  called  the  servant  again  and  angrily  sent 
word  to  Ahmed  Bey  to  come  whether  he  were 
ready  or  not. 

It  took  Nousret  Pasha  some  time  to  realize 
that  he  had  been  tricked.  He  was  naturally 
slow  of  wit,  and  he  was  too  used  to  tricking 


122     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

other  people  to  believe  that  they  would  dare  to 
trick  him.  Only  when  he  called  his  troop  of 
dancers  after  him  and  explored  the  house  did 
he  take  in  what  Ahmed  Bey  had  done.  The 
door  of  the  harem  was  locked.  Nousret  Pasha 
battered  it  in,  finding  the  rooms  lighted  and 
full  of  signs  of  recent  occupation.  But  no  one 
was  there — not  even  a  servant.  He  rushed 
down  through  the  empty  house  to  find  Ali.  The 
doors  leading  into  the  garden  were  all  locked. 
And  they  were  harder  to  batter  through  than 
the  one  upstairs.  But  Ali,  roused  by  the  noise, 
came  out  of  the  porter's  lodge  to  help.  He  had 
seen  no  one  leave,  he  said.  He  had  been  sitting 
with  the  doorkeeper  and  the  Jew  who  brought 
the  dancers,  until  a  servant  came  to  call  the 
Albanian — who  had  not  come  back. 

When  the  way  was  open  the  Pasha  ran  out 
into  the  garden,  revolver  in  hand.  A  summer 
moon  helped  him  in  his  search  among  the 
shrubbery — and  the  dancers  who  followed  him. 
They  looked  like  a  troop  of  bacchantes,  with 
their  loose  hair  and  gauzy  costumes,  as  they 
played  their  motley  hide-and-seek  in  the  moon 
light.  Ali  in  the  meantime  bethought  him  of 
his  horses.  He  found  them  in  the  stable,  safely 
munching  hay.  There  at  least  were  creatures 
he  could  understand!  From  this  and  cognate 
reflections  he  was  roused  by  further  battering, 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     123 

and  the  sound  of  his  own  name  shouted  from 
the  bottom  of  the  garden.  He  found  the  Pasha 
trying  to  break  through  a  back  gate,  also  locked. 

"Help  me,  Ali !"  he  shouted.  "We  must  catch 
them!" 

"It  will  take  us  less  time  if  we  go  around  by 
the  other  door,"  pointed  out  Ali  gravely.  "And 
if  there  is  any  one  to  catch,  are  not  the  police 
more  than  we?" 

Until  then  Nousret  Pasha  had  been  too  furi 
ous  to  remember  that  he  had  at  his  command 
an  elaborate  secret  machinery  for  catching  peo 
ple — and  keeping  them  as  long  as  he  chose. 
But  he  would  not  leave  the  place  till  he  had 
gone  through  the  house  once  more.  He  rushed 
upstairs  like  a  madman,  opening  doors,  bursting 
into  cupboards,  tearing  aside  curtains.  He  be 
gan  tearing  them  down,  and  shooting  at  win 
dows  and  chandeliers.  When  his  cartridges 
were  gone  he  used  the  butt  end  of  his  re 
volver. 

"Break!  Break!"  he  shouted.  "Leave 
nothing !" 

His  band  of  revellers  needed  no  second  invi 
tation.  They  filled  the  house  with  the  crash  of 
glass  and  the  splinter  of  wood,  stopping  only 
to  posture  indecently  in  front  of  a  mirror  be 
fore  smashing  it,  to  save  some  trophy  from  the 
general  sack,  and  to  empty  Ahmed  Bey's  bot- 


124     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

ties.  And  they  ended  by  setting  the  place  on 
fire.  Those  old  Turkish  houses  only  wait  for  a 
chance  to  burn — and  too  many  lighted  lamps 
were  thrown  on  the  floor  of  this  one. 

When  the  firemen  came,  hooting  half -naked 
from  the  neighbouring  villages,  they  found  lit 
tle  of  the  house  save  a  column  of  lurid  smoke 
towering  into  the  moonlight.  Nousret  Pasha 
brandished  his  revolver  at  them  from  the  gar 
den.  His  fantastic  company  sang  and  danced 
around  him  in  the  glare,  their  faces  streaked 
and  streaming,  their  clothes  torn,  their  arms 
full  of  loot  from  the  blazing  house.  The  Jew 
who  had  brought  them  cringed  in  the  arch  of 
the  gateway,  half  terrified  at  the  uproar,  half 
reassured  by  the  all-powerful  presence  of 
Nousret  Pasha.  In  the  road  outside,  his  face 
strangely  lighted,  stood  Ali  at  the  heads  of  his 
plunging  horses,  patting  their  quivering  necks 
and  talking  to  them  as  gently  as  he  could  amid 
the  crackle  and  the  screeching. 

V 

Under  ordinary  circumstances  the  story  would 
have  had  quite  a  different  end.  Ahmed  Bey  did 
not  have  much  the  start  of  Nousret  Pasha,  and 
Nousret  Pasha  had  eyes  and  ears  and  hands 
everywhere.  But  it  happened  that  the  night 
which  proved  so  eventful  for  Ahmed  Bey  and 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     125 

Nousret  Pasha  proved  no  less  eventful  for  their 
imperial  master,  Sultan  Hamid.  There  was 
much  galloping  of  horses  through  the  usually 
quiet  streets  of  Beshiktash  under  that  summer 
moon.  Ministers  remained  in  anxious  consulta 
tion  long  after  midnight  at  Yildiz  Palace.  Tele 
grams  flashed  back  and  forth  between  that 
guarded  hilltop  and  distant  Salonica — tele 
grams  fateful  for  the  destiny  of  the  House  of 
Osman.  When  the  reigning  representative  of 
it  went  at  last  to  bed,  it  was  half  consciously, 
borne  in  the  arms  of  his  attendants,  worn  out 
as  he  was  by  rage  and  fatigue.  And  in  the 
morning  three  lines  of  print  appeared  at  the  top 
of  all  the  papers,  announcing  that  the  Constitu 
tion  of  1876  had  been  reestablished. 

There  were  three  excellent  reasons  why 
Nousret  Pasha  did  not  chance  to  see  those  three 
lines.  In  the  first  place  he  went  to  bed  about  the 
time  the  three  lines  came  out,  and  he  got  up  too 
late  to  think  about  morning  papers.  In  the 
second  place  he  believed  himself  to  know  much 
more  than  all  the  papers  put  together,  who 
found  out  very  little  anyway  and  were  allowed 
to  publish  less.  In  the  third  place,  having  spent 
his  youth  in  the  more  interesting  occupations  of 
hunter,  wrestler,  and  highwayman,  he  had 
never  found  time  to  acquire  the  black  art  of  the 
pen.  Or,  if  I  must  put  it  more  plainly,  this 


126     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

great  personage  of  a  proud  court  could  neither 
read  nor  write  so  much  as  his  own  name. 

But  even  if  the  Sultan's  milk-brother  had 
been  able  to  read  those  three  lines,  he  would 
not  have  understood  what  they  meant.  He  did 
not  when  he  heard  about  them,  as  even  he  was 
not  slow  to  do.  He  never  did,  in  fact.  Never 
theless  it  became  apparent  that  something  had 
unaccountably  happened  which  he,  the  Sultan's 
chief  spy,  knew  nothing  about,  and  which  spoiled 
the  world,  as  he  put  it  to  Ali.  The  police,  who 
had  been  so  deferent  when  he  first  gave  his 
orders  with  regard  to  Ahmed  Bey,  presently 
dropped  the  case.  They  even  had  the  courage  to 
intimate  that  Nousret  Pasha  himself  might 
have  something  to  answer  for  in  the  matter  of 
Ahmed  Bey.  Other  people,  too,  treated  with  as 
little  respect,  or  actually  cut,  him  whom  they 
had  been  wont  to  salute  with  earth-sweeping 
salaams  and  kissings  of  the  hand.  It  was  the 
more  puzzling  because  the  Sultan  still  spoke 
kindly  to  him.  He  could  not  conceive  why,  if 
the  Sultan  continued  to  be  his  friend,  others 
dared  to  show  themselves  less.  The  Sultan 
tried,  not  too  successfully,  to  explain  that  it  was 
because  he,  the  Caliph  of  Islam  and  the  Shadow 
of  God  upon  Earth,  could  no  longer  do  as  he 
pleased.  And  he  made  Nousret  Pasha  a  hand- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     127 

some  present  and  advised  him  to  get  out  of  the 
country  while  he  could. 

In  the  end  it  was  Ali  who  got  Nousret  Pasha 
away.  When  two  such  counsellors  advised  the 
same  thing,  how  could  he  refuse?  Moreover, 
crowds  of  rotten-heads  marched  around  the 
streets  day  and  night  with  flags  and  music  and 
speeches,  unprevented  by  anybody,  to  prove 
that  the  world  was  upside  down.  And  one  night 
a  company  of  them  threw  stones  at  his  win 
dows,  shouting  "Brigand!"  and  "Spy!"  and 
"Blood-drinker!"  It  had  been  much  more 
amusing  to  hear  Ahmed  Bey's  windows  smash 
than  his  own,  and  those  shouts  were  not  pleas 
ant  to  listen  to  at  night.  It  was  only  when  Ali 
went  out  and  told  them  that  Nousret  Pasha 
had  gone  to  Europe  and  that  Madam  Nousret 
Pasha  was  alone  in  the  house,  that  they  went 
away. 

VI 

Going  to  Europe,  however,  proved  not  to  be 
so  easy  as  it  sounded.  Not  that  Nousret  Pasha 
had  the  slightest  desire  to  go  to  Europe.  He 
despised  Europe  as  heartily  as  he  admired 
European  clothes  and  European  cafe-chantant 
performers.  But  Ali  told  him  up  and  down  that 
he  must  go,  lest  worse  should  happen  than  the 
stone  throwing.  Moreover,  it  seemed  he  could 


128     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

not  go  as  he  was,  or  all  his  money  would  not 
be  enough  to  buy  him  a  ticket.  It  was  almost 
more  than  Ali  and  Madam  Nousret  could  do  to 
persuade  him  to  leave  the  house  that  very  night, 
taking  only  money  and  papers  and  a  little  jew 
ellery,  and  going  out  by  the  stable  door  to  the 
house  of  a  friend  of  Ali's.  Ali  in  the  meantime 
helped  Madam  Nousret  Pasha  to  pack,  and  early 
in  the  morning  drove  her  down  to  the  Moudania 
boat  in  the  yellow  satin  victoria,  which  he  put 
on  board  with  his  mistress  and  her  boxes  and 
her  black  man.  For  she  was  going  to  retire  for 
a  time  to  the  House  of  the  Giraffe.  Then  Ali 
went  back  to  his  friend's  house  and  dressed  his 
master,  to  his  master's  vast  disgust,  in  the  cos 
tume  of  a  wrestler,  with  baggy  fawn-coloured 
breeches,  and  a  short  embroidered  jacket  of  the 
same  colour,  and  a  huge  silk  girdle,  and  a  red 
and  yellow  silk  turban  with  the  fringe  hanging 
over  one  ear.  It  was  in  truth  a  costume  which 
became  Nousret  Pasha  much  better  than  any 
other,  and  time  had  been  when  he  wore  it  with 
pride.  But  it  was  with  very  little  pride  that  he 
went  out  in  it  now,  accompanied  by  Ali,  who  no 
longer  wore  his  trim  black  livery,  and  two  of 
Ali's  friends.  They  all  crowded  into  a  common 
open  carriage  of  the  street,  and  they  bought  red 
badges  of  the  Constitution,  which  they  pinned 
on  their  sleeves,  and  they  drove  down  to  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     129 

Bridge  and  right  through  Stamboul  as  if  they 
were  going  to  some  wrestling  match. 

Nousret  Pasha  did  not  like  it  at  first.  He  felt 
foolish  and  annoyed,  and  he  thought  every  one 
was  looking  at  him.  No  one  seemed  really  to 
recognize  him,  though,  which  also  piqued  him 
a  little.  And  the  others  said  so  many  funny 
things  and  made  him  laugh  so  much  that  he 
finally  quite  enjoyed  himself.  Having  driven 
through  Stamboul,  they  drove  on  through  Kazli 
and  Makri-kyoi  and  San  Stefano  to  Floria, 
where  is  that  grove  of  big  trees  on  the  edge  of 
the  sea.  There  they  got  out  and  ordered  the 
coffee-house  man  to  bring  them  matting  to  sit 
on,  and  water  and  coffee  to  drink,  and  all  man 
ner  of  things  to  eat,  and  they  spent  the  pleas- 
antest  day  imaginable  under  the  trees,  looking 
at  the  blue  Marmora. 

When  night  came  and  everybody  began  to 
go  away,  they  went  too.  But  instead  of  driving 
back  to  town  they  drove  on,  toward  Kuchiik 
Chekmejeh,  where  Ali  said  they  were  to  take 
the  train  that  night  for  Europe.  People  always 
speak,  in  Constantinople,  as  if  they  lived  on  an 
other  continent.  It  was  already  dark  when 
they  came  to  the  brow  of  a  hill  and  saw  the 
lights  of  Kuchtik  Chekmejeh  below  them,  and 
the  reflection  of  a  big  star  in  the  bay.  Ali  said 
that  there  was  not  much  time  to  the  train,  and 


130     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

he  told  the  Pasha  that  if  any  one  asked  him 
who  he  was  he  was  to  say  he  was  Mehmed,  a 
wrestler,  and  that  he  was  going  to  Adrianople 
for  his  trade.  It  was  just  as  well,  for  after  they 
got  to  the  station  and  sat  down  in  a  coif ee-house 
to  wait  for  the  train,  two  soldiers  came  up  and 
looked  at  them,  and  asked  who  they  were  and 
where  they  came  from  and  where  they  were 
going.  Ali  answered  most  of  the  questions,  and 
the  soldiers  finally  crossed  over  to  the  station. 
But  Nousret  Pasha  didn't  like  it.  He  wasn't 
used  to  having  people  ask  questions  about  him 
and  watch  him.  It  made  him  think,  somehow 
or  other,  of  Ahmed  Bey — and  of  Madam  Ahmed 
Bey.  He  wondered  where  they  were,  and  how 
he  was  to  find  them  now. 

It  was  a  clear  still  night,  so  still  he  could 
hear  the  crickets  in  the  dark  plains,  and  the 
lapping  of  the  water  on  a  little  beach  near  by. 
Fishermen  were  there,  busy  over  their  boats, 
laughing  in  the  darkness.  He  envied  the  fisher 
men.  No  one  asked  them  who  they  were  and 
where  they  were  going. 

"Kalolimnos!  Kalolimnos!"  one  of  them 
shouted.  "Who  is  going  to  Kalolimnos?  The 
steamer  is  starting !"  Nousret  Pasha  heard  the 
grating  of  a  keel  over  shingle,  splashings  in  the 
water.  He  got  up.  For  Kalolimnos  is  an  island 
off  the  cape  where  he  was  born. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     131 

"Come,  All,"  he  said,  turning  toward  the 
beach,  "I  am  not  going  to  Adrianople.  I  am 
going  to  Kalolimnos.  From  there  it  is  only  two 
hours  to  our  country." 

In  the  station  a  bell  of  two  notes  struck,  and 
somewhere  in  the  darkness  a  whistle  faintly 
shrilled.  Ali  hurried  after  his  master. 

"Come !"  he  whispered,  catching  hold  of  the 
Pasha's  arm.  "The  train  is  here.  After  all 
this,  how  can  we  miss  it  ?" 

"If  you  like,  take  it,"  answered  the  Pasha, 
breaking  away.  "I  will  not.  What  shall  I  do  in 
Europe  among  the  unbelievers  ?  I  am  going  to 
my  country."  And  he  jumped  aboard  the  fishing 
boat.  "I  am  going  to  Kalolimnos,"  he  said  to 
the  fishermen.  "How  much  do  you  want  ?" 

"Ali!"  called  one  of  their  companions  from 
the  coffee-house.  "Where  are  you?  The  train 
is  coming." 

Ali,  on  the  beach,  heard  it  coming.  It  sud 
denly  burst  out  of  the  cut  beyond  the  village 
and  bore  down  upon  them,  a  long  curve  of  inter 
mittent  lights.  It  stopped.  In  the  sudden  quiet 
Ali  heard  the  water  lapping  the  shingle,  the 
quick  crunch  of  gravel  under  feet,  a  musical 
tapping  of  metal,  sharp  questions  and  answers. 
The  inquisitive  soldiers  were  suddenly  made 
visible  by  the  light  that  came  from  an  open 
window.  A  bell  rang,  ending  in  two  strokes. 


132     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

"Eh?"  queried  All,  looking  up  at  the  Pasha. 

The  Pasha  was  watching,  too. 

"Eh !"  he  answered.    "Good-bye !" 

Ali  held  out  his  hand  to  the  Pasha,  who 
caught  it. 

"Quick !  Come !"  said  Ali  in  a  low  voice,  pull 
ing  toward  the  beach. 

"No,  you  come!"  laughed  the  Pasha,  pulling 
with  all  his  might  toward  the  boat. 

Another  bell  rang,  ending  in  three  strokes. 
A  whistle  blew  shrilly.  Some  one  shouted  and 
some  one  else  replied.  The  intermittent  lights 
began  to  move  slowly  forward. 

"Are  you  coming,  too  ?"  asked  one  of  the  fish 
ermen. 

"Yes,"  answered  Ali  shortly. 

He  watched  the  chain  of  lights  touch  face 
and  tree  and  water,  quicken  into  a  yellow  blur, 
and- dwindle  into  the  darkness.  There  seemed 
to  him  something  derisive  in  the  last  scream  of 
the  whistle.  He  said  nothing,  however — except 
to  make  arrangements  with  the  fishermen. 
They  were  not  too  curious  about  their  unex 
pected  passengers.  There  is  a  good  deal  of 
such  travel  in  the  Marmora,  and  they  took 
Nousret  Pasha  for  what  he  seemed.  When  they 
heard  that  the  wrestler  was  really  bound  for 
the  peninsula  beyond  Kalolimnos  they  sug 
gested  landing  him  there — for  a  small  extra 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     133 

consideration.  AH  agreed  readily  enough.  That 
would  attract  less  attention. 

As  for  the  Pasha,  he  felt  more  himself  than 
he  had  done  for  days.  He  found  it  very  com 
fortable  on  the  little  stern  deck  of  the  boat, 
with  the  matting  and  sheepskins  of  the  fisher 
men.  He  slept  soundly  there,  oblivious  to  the 
splash  of  the  oars,  the  rising  of  the  moon,  and 
his  heavy-hearted  companion.  When  he  woke 
up  the  sun  was  already  high  and  they  were 
skimming  merrily  along  under  a  patched  bal 
loon  sail.  The  low  white  hills  of  Kalolimnos 
were  behind  them,  to  the  south.  Beyond  the 
sail  he  saw  the  steep  green  of  his  country. 

They  landed  on  the  north  side  of  Boz  Bou- 
roun,  the  weathered  gray  nose  that  was  sacred 
of  old  to  Poseidon.  From  it  they  made  their 
way  without  difficulty  over  the  rocks  and 
through  the  woods  they  knew  so  well,  toward  a 
certain  colony  of  great  black  cypresses.  And 
Nousret  Pasha's  heart  grew  lighter  with  every 
step.  But  when  he  came  to  the  last  turn  of  the 
road  and  looked  eagerly  for  his  house,  no  house 
was  there.  Only  the  trees  and  the  head  of  the 
giraffe  showed  above  the  wall. 

VII 

Nousret  Pasha  and  Ali  looked  at  each  other. 
The  same  thing  flashed  into  the  mind  of  each — 


134     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

that  the  house  had  burned  down,  as  the  gypsy 
had  prophesied.  And  that  was  not  all  the  gypsy 
had  prophesied. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  house  had  burned 
down.  It  had  so  recently  burned  down  that  the 
garden  was  full  of  the  acrid  odour  of  charred 
wood,  and  the  air  still  quivered  hot  above  the 
ruins.  Among  them  old  Moustafa  was  poking 
with  a  stick — the  Pasha's  gardener  and  care 
taker.  At  the  sound  of  steps  he  turned.  At 
first  he  did  not  recognize  the  strangers.  Then 
he  came  humbly  forward,  salaamed,  and  kissed 
his  master's  hand,  touching  it  to  his  forehead. 

"What  is  this  ?"  demanded  the  Pasha,  with  a 
return  of  his  old  air. 

"They  burned  it,"  replied  Moustafa,  his 
hands  folded  in  front  of  him. 

"They  burned  it !  Who  burned  it  ?  And  why 
did  you  let  them  burn  it  ?" 

"What  could  I  do?"  stammered  the  old  man. 
"They  were  many.  They  came  from  the  vil 
lage There  was  much  talk The  world 

is  upside  down  since  every  one  speaks  of — 
constitution,  monstitution,  what  do  I  know? 
But  it  was  written,  my  Pasha,"  he  added,  as  if 
there  were  nothing  more  to  be  said. 

Yes,  it  was  written,  the  Pasha  told  himself. 
And  why  had  he  let  that  train  leave  him  last 
night?  By  this  time  he  would  have  been  in 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     135 

Europe,  and  safe.  The  consciousness  of  it  was 
stronger  than  his  anger. 

"And  the  things?"  he  asked,  less  roughly. 
"What  became  of  them?"  The  smell  and  ruin 
of  the  place  made  him  think  of  Emirgyan. 

The  old  man  waved  his  hand : 

"Gone!  They  took  them  all — furniture, 
horses,  dogs.  Only  that  is  left" — pointing  to 
the  giraffe  that  lifted  its  neck  among  the 
scorched  trees.  "They  even  took  the  silk  car 
riage  that  the  hanim  brought  last  night.  The 
Kaimakam  has  it." 

"And  the  hanim?"  inquired  the  Pasha,  only 
then  reminded  of  his  unfortunate  wife.  He 
wondered  a  little  that  he  listened  to  it  all  so 
quietly. 

"She  went  back  to  Moudania,  they  said.  I 
didn't  see  her.  Some  thought  she  was  going  to 
Broussa,  and  others  to  Stamboul." 

Nousret  Pasha's  heart  grew  heavy  within 
him.  His  country,  indeed !  He  had  never  imag 
ined  that  the  sudden  madness  of  the  world 
would  reach  even  here.  And  his  countrymen 
had  done  this  to  him,  whom  they  had  always 
known,  who  had  chosen  to  return  to  them  when 
he  might  have  gone  to  Europe !  After  all,  what 
had  he  done  to  them?  If  he  had  taken  a  few 
presents  and  kissed  a  few  girls,  wasn't  it  what 
they  all  did  when  they  got  a  chance  ?  And  had 


136     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

they  had  enough,  or  was  it  written  that  they 
must  require  something  more  of  him?  His 
beady  eyes  brooded  dully  on  the  giraffe. 

As  for  Ali,  if  he  as  well  felt  heavy  of  heart, 
he  did  not  betray  it. 

"Is  the  kiosque  left,"  he  asked,  "or  did  they 
burn  that,  too?" 

"No,"  answered  Moustafa.  "They  left  that 
for  me." 

"Eh,  what  more  do  we  want !"  exclaimed  Ali. 
"Let  us  go  and  sit  down  there,  and  Moustafa 
will  make  us  a  coffee,  and  we  will  see  what  we 
will  do." 

They  went,  and  they  sat  down  on  a  little 
divan  overlooking  the  blue  Gulf,  and  they  saw 
what  they  would  do.  At  least  Ali  did.  He  told 
the  Pasha  that  he  must  stay  quietly  in  the 
kiosque  for  a  day  or  two,  without  so  much  as 
showing  his  nose  outside  the  garden.  Moustafa 
would  look  after  him  and  see  that  no  one 
troubled  him,  while  he,  Ali,  would  go  away  and 
arrange  something.  Only  the  Pasha  must  let 
him  have  money,  much  money.  For  without 
money  it  would  be  impossible  to  arrange  any 
thing,  now. 

The  Pasha  made  haste  to  produce  the  money. 
He  only  wished  Ali  did  not  have  to  go  away. 
When  Ali  had  gone  away  he  fell  into  a  state  of 
something  nearer  a  confused  introspection  than 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     137 

he  had  ever  experienced  before.  In  this  kiosque, 
where  he  had  passed  so  many  pleasant  hours, 
it  was  strange  to  find  himself  again,  a  fugitive. 
How  had  it  all  come  about,  and  why  had  every 
body  turned  against  him  ?  It  made  him  angry. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  Ahmed  Bey  must  have 
brought  it  about — that  .Ahmed  Bey  who  was 
nothing.  Where  was  Ahmed  Bey  ?  he  wondered. 
Where  had  they  run  to  that  night  in  the  moon 
light?  What  were  those  long  eyes  looking  at 
now?  He  would  see  them  again,  those  long 
eyes!  Just  let  them  wait!  Yet,  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  he  felt  afraid.  No  one  knew 
better  than  he  how  easy  it  was  to  watch  people, 
and  catch  them.  The  world  had  suddenly  gone 
upside  down:  what  if  people  really  wanted  to 
catch  him?  What  would  they  do  to  him? 
There  were  so  many  things  to  do !  He  could  not 
forget  that  gypsy  woman.  He  could  not  bear 
to  see  the  ruins  of  the  house.  They  reminded 
him  of  her.  And  it  seemed  to  him  an  eternity 
before  Ali  came  back.  With  cigarettes  and  cof 
fee,  however,  and  gossip  with  old  Moustafa,  and 
a  good  deal  of  sleep,  the  time  passed. 

VIII 

It  was  less  than  three  days,  after  all,  when 
Ali  came  back.  He  had  been  to  town,  it  seemed, 
and  he  brought  strange  news.  All  their  old 


138     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

friends  at  the  Palace  were  gone  and  the  Sultan 
was  left  alone  among  strangers.  Selim  Pasha 
and  Izzet  Pasha — that  clever  Izzet — had  run 
away  to  Europe.  The  others,  or  those  who  could 
be  found,  were  being  shut  up  in  the  War  Office ; 
and  these  new  people,  whoever  they  were,  were 
taking  their  money  and  houses.  They  had  even 
taken  what  they  could  find  of  Nousret  Pasha's ! 

By  the  time  Nousret  Pasha  heard  this,  he 
was  quite  ready  to  hear  what  Ali  had  arranged. 
Ali  was  still  for  Europe,  it  seemed.  By  the  help 
of  a  friend  or  two,  and  much  money,  he  had 
arranged  that  a  German  steamer,  bound  from 
the  Black  Sea  to  the  Mediterranean,  should 
stop  for  a  little  while,  that  very  night,  off  the 
island  of  Marmora.  In  the  meantime  a  tug,  by 
which  in  fact  Ali  had  run  down  from  Stamboul, 
was  to  come  at  nightfall  as  far  as  the  House  of 
the  Giraffe  and  take  off  Nousret  Pasha,  in  order 
to  put  him  on  the  German  steamer.  The  tug 
was  to  be  trailing  a  tender,  with  men  in  it  all 
ready  to  row.  They  would  begin  to  row  as  soon 
as  they  saw  certain  lights  in  the  window  of  the 
kiosque,  and  the  passenger  would  only  have  to 
run  down  across  the  beach  to  be  in  safety.  But 
until  then  they  must  continue  to  stay  quietly  in 
the  kiosque.  And  he,  Ali,  would  try  to  make 
up  a  little  sleep. 

In  truth  he  looked  as  if  he  needed  it.    He  had 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     139 

grown  visibly  thin  and  there  were  black  hollows 
under  his  eyes.  Yet  the  Pasha  noted  with  envy 
that  he  had  had  a  shave.  The  Pasha  himself 
had  had  none  since  the  afternoon  before  his 
windows  had  been  smashed.  Nevertheless  the 
return  of  AH  dissipated  the  Pasha's  vapours. 
At  this  time  to-morrow  he  would  be  on  board 
the  German  steamer !  No  fear  of  his  refusing, 
this  time,  to  do  what  Ali  said.  It  might  be 
rather  amusing,  after  all,  to  go  to  Europe.  He 
wondered  if  he  would  meet  any  of  his  old 
friends  there.  If  not  there  were  sure  to  be  new 
ones.  There  might  even  be  some  one  on  the 
boat.  .  .  .  But  this  absurd  costume  of  his! 
And  his  four  days'  beard !  What  would  he  not 
give  to  be  able  to  go  to  the  bath  in  the  village ! 
Who  would  know  him?  Certainly  none  of  the 
bath  boys:  they  changed  so  often.  For  a  mo 
ment  he  almost  thought  he  would  go.  Then  he 
decided  that  he  would  send  Moustafa  to  call  a 
barber.  Moustafa  could  say  that  he  had  a 
friend  who  had  hurt  his  foot,  and  they  would 
give  the  man  a  good  tip,  and  by  the  time  he 
got  back  to  the  village  it  would  be  too  late  to  do 
any  harm,  even  if  he  did  talk. 

Old  Moustafa  could  not  deny  the  cogency  of 
this  reasoning,  nor  the  fact  that  the  Pasha  was 
Ali's  master  as  well  as  his  own — which  the 
Pasha  did  not  fail  to  point  out  when  Moustafa 


140     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

objected  that  All  had  told  him  not  to  leave  the 
place.  Moustafa  wished  AH  were  not  asleep. 
Yet  it  seemed  a  pity  to  wake  him  up,  when  he 
looked  so  tired.  To  the  village  accordingly  old 
Moustafa  trudged,  and  got  the  nearest  barber, 
who  happened  to  be  a  Greek  and  who  took  pains 
to  leave  word  where  he  had  gone.  So  Nousret 
Pasha  was  made  in  a  manner  presentable  to  the 
daughters  of  Europe,  despite  the  unworthy 
wrestler's  costume.  And  so  was  the  gypsy 
woman  justified  of  her  dark  words. 

It  may  be,  indeed,  that  Nousret  Pasha's 
vanity  might  not  have  been  his  end,  even  when 
word  was  taken  to  the  Kaimakam  that  the 
Greek  barber,  having  been  called  to  the  House 
of  the  Giraffe — or  what  was  left  of  it — was  un 
able  to  attend  His  Excellency.  For  His  Excel 
lency  also  patronized  the  Greek  barber,  as  being 
one  quicker  to  adopt  innovations  in  the  ton- 
sorial  art,  not  to  say  one  who  might  more 
readily  be  left  unpaid,  than  one  of  the  faith. 
But  the  mention  of  the  House  of  the  Giraffe 
reminded  His  Excellency  of  a  certain  yellow 
satin  victoria  he  had  lately  confiscated  on  be 
half  of  the  Constitution.  He  desired  to  be  well 
with  the  Constitution,  this  Kaimakam,  and  had 
made  no  unpleasantness  about  the  burning  of 
the  House  of  the  Giraffe.  Accordingly,  un 
shaven  as  he  was,  he  took  a  drive  in  the  yellow 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     141 

satin  victoria — to  the  no  small  discomfort  of 
his  provisional  coachman,  who  knew  well 
enough  how  to  whip  a  pony  of  the  country  but 
who  had  never  seen  a  spirited  Hungarian  horse 
before  in  his  life,  much  less  a  pair  of  them. 
Nevertheless  the  spirited  Hungarians  drew  the 
yellow  satin  victoria  without  mishap,  in  the  cool 
of  the  day,  to  the  end  of  the  peninsula,  where 
the  Kaimakam,  to  his  no  small  surprise,  beheld 
a  small  tug  anchored  in  a  cove  of  rocks.  The 
spectacle  of  that  small  tug,  swimming  like  a  toy 
in  the  blue  cove,  with  a  toy  dinghey  behind  her, 
caused  the  Kaimakam  considerably  to  think. 
The  times  were  uncertain,  he  knew.  Certain  of 
those  in  great  place  were  being  removed  there 
from  and  others  were  removing  themselves,  ex- 
peditiously  and  secretly.  How  could  a  Kaima 
kam  of  an  obscure  peninsula  better  appease 
that  mysterious  being,  the  Constitution,  than 
by  making,  under  due  military  escort,  a  per 
sonal  examination  of  the  country  place  of  a 
notorious  spy  of  the  old  regime? 

He  caught  Nousret  Pasha  without  the  slight 
est  trouble.  He  took  the  precaution  to  post  his 
men  out  of  sight,  and  they  drew  up  as  twilight 
fell.  The  thing  was  not  done,  of  course,  with 
out  a  few  shots.  The  shots  frightened  the  tug 
away,  however,  and  nobody  was  hurt.  As  for 
Nousret  Pasha,  who  had  such  a  terrible  repu- 


142     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

tation,  he  did  nothing.  He  merely  said,  "It  was 
written,"  and  got  into  the  yellow  satin  victoria 
like  a  lamb.  The  Kaimakam  got  in  too,  and  a 
couple  of  soldiers.  The  Kaimakam  would  have 
let  the  servants  go — after  all,  they  were  not  to 
blame  for  what  their  master  did — but  Ali  chose 
to  consider  himself  under  arrest  as  well.  He 
jumped  on  to  the  box,  and  the  yellow  satin  vic 
toria  rolled  back  to  the  village  in  the  summer 
dusk. 

IX 

The  Ka'imakam  drove  straight  to  the  tele 
graph  office.  He  wished  to  report  his  prize  to 
Constantinople,  and  incidentally  to  ask  instruc 
tions.  For  he  had  no  authority  to  shut  up 
Nousret  Pasha,  who  might  very  well  have  com 
mitted  all  the  crimes  in  the  code  but  against 
whom  no  one  had  produced  a  warrant  of  arrest. 
To  the  telegraph  office,  then,  the  Ka'imakam 
drove,  and  left  Nousret  Pasha  under  guard  in 
the  victoria  while  he  composed  his  telegram. 

A  crowd  began  to  collect  in  the  little  square. 
A  crowd  collected  around  the  carriage,  that  is, 
for  people  had  already  been  sitting  where  the 
coffee-house  lights  twinkled  under  the  huge 
plane  trees.  The  Kaimakam's  new  carriage  and 
horses  were  things  to  look  at  by  themselves. 
When  it  became  known  who  was  sitting  in  the 
carriage,  dressed  like  a  wrestler  as  of  old,  the 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     143 

crowd  trebled.  Among  them  were  not  a  few 
who  had  helped  to  loot  and  burn  the  House  of 
the  Giraffe.  They  were  a  little  silent  at  first, 
when  they  so  unexpectedly  saw  in  their  midst 
the  redoubtable  Nousret  Pasha  himself,  sitting 
in  his  famous  yellow  satin  victoria.  But  as  the 
story  of  his  capture  went  around  there  began 
to  be  more  talk  and  more  freedom.  People  asked 
questions  of  the  soldiers  and  the  coachman — 
of  Ali  too,  whom  several  of  his  old  acquaint 
ances  gravely  greeted. 

The  coachman  nudged  one  of  the  soldiers  and 
asked  him  to  hold  the  reins  for  a  minute.  The 
soldier  willingly  enough  agreed.  He  was 
cramped  from  sitting  on  that  little  front  seat, 
and  there  was  no  lack  of  people  to  watch 
Nousret  Pasha.  So  the  coachman  got  down. 
His  arms  ached  from  holding  those  big  Hun 
garians.  And  the  soldier  got  up.  Ali  scanned 
him  in  the  dark.  He  seemed  to  be  a  big,  mild, 
elderly  Anatolian,  such  as  used  to  serve  Sultan 
Hamid  by  the  thousand,  in  ragged  blue  uni 
forms  piped  with  red,  and  seldom  got  paid 
for  it. 

"Brother,  have  you  any  tobacco?"  asked 
Ali. 

"A  little,"  answered  the  soldier,  producing 
one  of  those  capacious  metal  boxes  that  some 
body  in  Turkey  must  make  a  fortune  out  of. 


144     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

AH  rolled  himself  a  cigarette  with  delibera 
tion.  When  he  handed  back  the  box  the  soldier 
nearly  dropped  it,  the  thing  was  so  heavy.  He 
looked  at  Ali  and  Ali  looked  at  him. 

"That  will  get  you  some  more  tobacco,"  said 
Ali  in  a  low  voice.  "Give  me  the  reins  and 
jump  down." 

The  soldier  hesitated.  He  felt  cautiously 
under  the  cover  of  the  box.  It  was  full  of  coins 
— five  piastre  pieces,  by  the  size.  Or  could  they 
be  gold  liras?  He  let  Ali  take  the  reins.  Ali 
touched  the  other  soldier,  behind  him,  on  the 
arm. 

"Will  you  change  places  with  your  comrade  ?" 
he  asked.  "He  is  not  used  to  horses  like  these." 

The  big  Hungarians  reared  and  began  to 
back.  The  soldier  on  the  box  jumped  down. 
The  other  looked  around  doubtfully.  The  horses 
still  pranced.  The  crowd  parted  a  little. 

"They  might  make  a  calamity,"  said  the  first 
soldier. 

The  one  in  the  carriage  got  out,  none  too 
briskly,  in  order  to  mount  the  box. 

"Hold  on!"  shouted  Ali,  to  whomever  had 
ears  to  hear,  letting  out  the  reins  and  cracking 
his  whip.  The  big  horses  bounded  forward, 
scattering  the  crowd  in  front  of  them  like 
sheep. 

"Stop  them !  Stop  them !"  yelled  the  Raima- 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     145 

kam  from  the  steps  of  the  telegraph  office.  He 
had  just  composed  a  telegram  that  satisfied  him 
not  a  little. 

But  it  was  too  late  to  stop  them — unless  the 
shots  that  banged  in  the  little  square  had 
taken  effect.  None  of  them  did.  It  was  not  for 
nothing  that  Ali  had  been  born  and  brought  up 
in  that  village.  He  knew  every  stone  and  tree 
and  turn  of  it  in  the  dark,  and  in  three  minutes 
he  was  past  every  possible  mishap,  on  a  long 
flat  road  where  nothing  could  stop  them,  in 
that  railless  and  motorless  country — except  the 
telegraph.  And  they  need  not  go  where  the 
telegraph  did. 

Where  were  they  going,  though?  At  first 
Ali  hardly  knew  what  direction  he  took,  save 
the  one  that  was  nearest  for  safety.  Now  he 
realized  that  they  were  galloping  east,  for  the 
mainland,  for  Anatolia.  That  was  better  than 
the  tip  of  the  peninsula,  where  they  would  have 
been  caught  like  rats  in  a  trap — unless  they 
found  a  boat.  But  the  telegraph,  in  the  end, 
could  gallop  faster  than  the  big  Hungarians. 
And  it  would  never  do  to  gallop  through  Asia 
Minor  in  that  notorious  yellow  satin  victoria. 

Nousret  Pasha  had  resigned  himself,  when 
the  soldiers  first  surprised  him,  to  the  inevita 
ble.  But  spirit  came  back  to  him  as  he  found 
himself  rolling  safely  away  through  the  dark 


146     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

— though  there  was  still  something  cold  at  the 
bottom  of  his  heart,  and  he  wished  the  horses' 
hoofs  did  not  thunder  so.  He  reached  forward, 
now  and  then,  and  pinched  or  patted  Ali.  What 
a  boy,  after  all,  was  this  Ali !  When  Ali  pulled 
in  the  horses  to  a  trot,  however,  the  Pasha  pro 
tested.  Ali  had  to  point  out  that  the  horses 
could  not  gallop  forever.  They  would  get  far 
ther,  now  that  there  was  no  immediate  danger, 
by  going  a  little  slower. 

So  the  fugitives  sped  all  night  through  the 
dim  country  of  their  boyhood.  On  one  side  of 
them  the  sea  made  soft  noises  against  rocks 
and  shingle.  On  the  other  side  a  mountain  rose 
black  to  the  stars.  Dogs  barked  from  invisible 
farms.  After  a  time  the  moon  rose — the  same 
moon  by  which  they  had  made  their  voyage  in 
the  fishing  boat,  by  which  they  had  danced  in 
Ahmed  Bey's  garden,  by  which  Ahmed  Bey  had 
run  away:  the  same  moon,  but  shrunk  and 
eaten.  Nousret  Pasha  wondered  how  reddish 
hair  would  look  by  it,  and  if,  somewhere,  those 
strange  long  eyes  were  seeing  it  too.  And  now 
it  made  the  road  into  Asia  a  little  lighter  for 
the  big  Hungarians,  and  for  the  faithful  coach 
man  who  drove  them,  and  for  the  fat  man  sit 
ting  behind  them  in  the  coquettish  satin 
carriage,  half  grotesque,  half  tragic,  trying  to 
outrun  his  destiny. 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     147 


The  cocks  were  almost  past  crowing,  and 
Olympus,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Gulf,  was 
already  touched  by  a  fairy  light,  when  they 
came  to  a  village  in  the  hills  where  Ali  knew 
there  was  no  telegraph.  There  they  could  be 
safe  for  a  little  while,  at  least,  and  they  must 
rest  and  feed  the  horses.  Then  they  would 
make  one  more  stage  inland,  and  get  rid  of  that 
tell-tale  turnout  as  they  could.  After  that 

They  drove  to  the  khan,  in  order  to  stir  up 
less  suspicion,  and  roused  a  hostler.  The  pro 
prietor  whom  Ali  knew  had  gone ;  but  his  suc 
cessor  was  willing  to  accept  a  handsome  tip,  to 
stable  the  horses,  to  put  the  carriage  under 
cover,  to  believe  that  his  clients  were  driving 
from  Yalova  to  Broussa,  and  to  give  them  a 
room  where  they  might  rest. 

Nousret  Pasha,  having  eaten  something, 
rested  very  well.  Ali  could  not.  He  could  not 
think,  even.  After  a  while  he  got  up  from  his 
mattress  and  sat  at  the  window.  It  looked  into 
the  street  and  into  part  of  the  opposite  garden, 
beyond  which  a  wide  green  country  dropped 
into  the  blue  of  the  Gulf.  How  cool  and  like  a 
paradise  it  seemed  in  the  early  sun !  And  where 
in  all  that  paradise  could  he  find  a  place  to  hide 
this  foolish  master  who  snored  behind  him? 


148     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

How  could  they  help  being  caught,  in  the  end? 
Why,  after  all,  should  they  try  to  escape? 
What  was  written  was  written.  But  his  heart 
grew  heavy  to  think  he  must  yet  accomplish 
what  was  written. 

It  was  written  that  he  should  not  have  to 
wait  very  long.  As  he  sat  pondering  his  ways 
and  watching  the  sun  mount  higher  over  the 
green  and  blue  below  him,  he  became  aware  of 
some  one  moving  in  the  garden  across  the 
street.  It  was  a  woman,  and  evidently  no  peas 
ant,  in  a  loose  gray  dress  with  a  white  veil  over 
her  hair.  She  was  walking  down  a  path  trel- 
lised  with  grapevines.  Then  she  turned  into  an 
open  space  of  grass  where  pomegranate  trees 
stood  in  blossom.  She  suddenly  looked  up  at 
the  window,  as  if  conscious  that  some  one  saw 
her.  And  Ali  became  aware  that  she  was 
Madam  Ahmed  Bey.  She  at  once  drew  her  veil 
across  her  face  and  stepped  out  of  sight  below 
the  wall. 

Did  she  recognize  him  too  ?  How  should  she  ? 
Yet  if  she  did —  Ali  hesitated  but  a  moment. 
Glancing  at  his  prostrate  master,  he  went  out 
softly  and  asked  whether  he  could  hire  any 
horses.  The  khanji  said  none  were  to  be  had  at 
that  hour :  they  were  all  out  for  the  day,  and  he 
doubted  whether  any  could  be  found  elsewhere 
in  the  village.  Ali  ordered,  accordingly,  that 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     149 

his  own  be  harnessed  at  once.  If  the  khanji 
thought  anything,  he  said  nothing.  Wrestlers 
did  not  usually  travel  all  night,  as  this  one  had 
done,  in  silk  carriages,  and  then  rest  barely  two 
hours  before  travelling  again.  But  since  this 
affair  of  the  Constitution  everything  was  up 
side  down. 

The  carriage  was  presently  ready,  with 
fodder  for  beast  and  man,  and  AH  roused  his 
master.  Nousret  Pasha  came  very  unwillingly 
to  consciousness.  But  AH  looked  so  grave  he 
asked  no  question  and  made  no  remonstrance. 
They  went  downstairs,  they  paid  their  bill,  they 
took  their  respective  places  in  the  victoria. 
The  hostler  threw  open  the  doors  of  the  court 
to  let  them  out. 

As  the  horses  clattered  through  the  archway 
Nousret  Pasha  saw  Ahmed  Bey  on  the  other 
side  of  the  street.  For  an  instant  a  commotion 
seized  him  and  he  looked  beyond  Ahmed  Bey, 
searching  the  lattices  of  the  house.  But  the 
commotion  subsided,  and  it  turned  into  the  cold 
ness  of  last  night  when  Ahmed  Bey  caught  hold 
of  a  bridle. 

"Nousret  Pasha,  are  you  running  away  ?"  de 
manded  Ahmed  Bey  loudly. 

Nousret  Pasha's  coldness  began  to  be  warmed 
by  anger. 

"AH,  whip  him!"  he  commanded. 


150     THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE 

All,  however,  did  not  whip  him.  He  whipped 
the  horses  instead.  And  this  time  there  was 
no  crowd,  as  yet,  in  front  of  them.  But  they 
did  not  break  away.  Doors  and  windows  began 
to  open.  People  came  out  of  the  khan.  Peas 
ants  stopped  in  the  street. 

"Nousret  Pasha " 

Ali  lashed  the  tired  horses.  The  whole  vil 
lage  would  know  in  an  instant,  if  Ahmed  Bey 
went  on  bawling  that  name.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  the  name  began  to  be  repeated  in  the 
street.  It  was  a  name  the  village  knew  for  a 
name  of  rumour  and  of  terror.  But  Ali  could 
not  turn  the  horses  into  the  straightaway 
stretch,  because  of  Ahmed  Bey  who  turned 
them  back.  And  though  Ahmed  Bey  was  his 
master's  enemy,  Ali  did  not  wish  to  hurt  him. 
Between  the  two  of  them  the  horses  began  to 
plunge. 

Then  Nousret  Pasha  stood  up,  reached  across 
the  box,  snatched  the  whip  out  of  Ali's  hand, 
and  lunged  at  Ahmed  Bey.  Ahmed  Bey  drew 
back.  The  horses  leaped  forward. 

Suddenly  a  woman's  voice  sounded  strangely 
from  behind  a  lattice. 

"Musselmans !"  cried  the  voice.  "This  is 
Nousret  Pasha,  the  spy  of  Sultan  Hamid,  the 
drinker  of  blood,  the  destroyer  of  souls!  Will 
you  let  him  go?" 


THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GIRAFFE     151 

They  did  not  let  him  go. 

How  do  such  things  happen?  Some  thrill  in 
that  invisible  woman's  voice,  some  buried  fury 
against  wrongs  too  long  endured,  some  spark  of 
those  that  flash  from  man  to  man  when  many 
are  together,  set  on  fire  in  those  gathered  peas 
ants  a  wildness  that  lies  dormant  in  us  all.  Ali, 
sitting  on  his  box  above  it,  trying  to  manage  his 
terrified  horses,  heard  the  whistle  of  the  whip 
that  had  been  wrested  from  him,  and  fierce 
shouts,  and  a  crash  of  stones,  and  sickening 
thuds,  and  gasps  of  quick  breath,  and  his  own 
name  cried  in  mad  fear,  and  other  sounds  in 
human  and  unnameable. 

The  tumult  sprang  up  and  quieted  like  a  blast 
of  tropic  wind.  In  that  utter  quiet  was  some 
thing  that  made  Ali  cold.  It  made  him  think, 
too,  of  the  gypsy  woman.  When  at  last  he 
could  look  around  he  turned  pale.  The  satin  of 
the  carriage  was  more  red  than  yellow,  and 
what  remained  in  it  was  very  little  of  a  man. 
To  that  man  had  happened  what  happened  of 
old  to  the  bears  he  caught  in  the  mountains, 
when  he  set  dogs  on  them,  at  his  House  of  the 
Giraffe.  And  so  was  fulfilled  the  destiny  of 
that  house,  and  of  its  master. 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

For  my  part,  in  the  presence  of  a  young  girl  I  always 

become  convinced  that  the  dreams  of  sentiment — like 

the  consoling  mysteries  of  Faith — are  invincible;  that 

it  is  never,  never  reason  which  governs  men  and  women. 

— Joseph  Conrad:  CHANCE. 

I  DON'T  wonder  you  want  to  steal  it.  Did 
you  ever  see  anything  so  perfect  as  that 
little  spiral  relief  of  bay  leaves  ?  And  you 
would  be  still  more  rapacious  if  you  knew  where 
it  came  from.  But  I  shall  hold  on  to  it  as  long 
as  I  hold  on  to  anything,  and  then  it's  going  to 
the  Seraglio  Museum.  I  suppose  our  trotting 
over  there  this  morning,  and  our  gossip  about 
old  times,  must  have  been  too  much  for  me,  be 
cause  I  really  have  no  business  to  tell  you.  At 
any  rate,  you  may  pick  up  some  crumbs  for 
your  monograph.  That  isn't  the  real  interest, 
though — for  me,  at  least.  I'm  not  scientific 
enough  to  be  an  archaeologist,  much  as  that 
sort  of  thing  takes  my  imagination.  What 
catches  me  is  the  human  in  it  all.  And  in  this 

case  the  two 

However,  do  you  remember  my  cousin  Per- 

152 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  153 

sis?  Yes,  she  always  was  a  rather  uncommon 
girl — from  the  time  she  began  to  fill  a  large  and 
respectable  circle  of  relatives  with  anguish  by 
the  quality  of  her  promise  to  end  in  a  circus. 
She  rode  like  a  jockey,  you  know,  and  she  would 
as  soon  have  executed  the  tourbillon  de  la  mort 
as  a  figure  in  the  german.  So  when  she  went 
out  to  Sidon  as  a  missionary  we  had  only 
breath  enough  left  to  gasp  "I  told  you  so." 
Being  the  last  thing  in  the  world  that  any  one 
expected,  it  was  the  most  natural  for  her  to 
do.  You  are  not  to  suppose,  however,  that  the 
outcries  we  made  were  simply  owing  to  the  fact 
that  we  objected  to  having  virtue  break  out  in 
our  midst.  That  was  bad  enough,  of  course. 
Few  skeletons  in  a  family  closet  are  so  trying 
to  confess  to  as  a  missionary.  But  you  may 
recollect  that,  among  other  things,  she  was  the 
best  company  in  the  world.  She  even  had  a 
trick  of  making  plain  domestic  life  more  amus 
ing  than  most  week-ends. 

You  must  make  your  own  allowances,  though, 
because  I  am  free  to  confess  that  when  Persis 
announced  to  what  use  she  intended  to  put  her 
youth  and  looks  and  general  rarity,  no  outcries 
were  louder  or  more  lamentable  than  mine.  She 
was,  to  be  sure,  my  cousin,  but  even  a  cousin 
may  be  worth  cultivating.  At  least  I  found  it 
so  the  first  time  I  went  home  on  leave.  And  I 


154  THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

always  admire  the  banality  of  the  occasions  of 
things  in  this  world  when  I  recall  that  of  my 
discovery.  It  was  at  an  entertainment  given — 
I  believe  in  my  own  honour — by  Aunt  Jo,  who, 
in  common  with  other  hostesses  I  have  known, 
persisted  in  regarding  my  preference  of  silence 
to  conversation  in  company  as  evidence  of  bash- 
fulness.  She  therefore  tore  Persis  from  a  circle 
of  cavaliers  in  the  hope  of  drawing  me  into 
sociability,  and  the  first  remark  of  this  reluc 
tant  young  person  somehow  put  her  for  me  in 
a  light. 

"Mother  says  I  must  come  over  and  talk 
to  you,"  she  sighed ;  "but  I  can't  think  of  any 
thing  to  say.  Can  you?" 

It  happened  that  I  could.  Indeed,  as  time 
went  on  I  thought  of  more  than  Persis  was 
willing  to  listen  to.  She  would  then  cheerfully 
assure  me  that  one  adult  idiot  was  insufferable 
enough,  without  a  whole  tribe  of  little  ones. 
Or,  when  I  went  about  exploding  the  supersti 
tion  that  consanguinity  was  a  bar  to  wedlock, 
she  would  complain  that  she  needed  a  little 
room  for  the  imagination,  whereas  I  allowed  her 
none :  she  always  knew  what  I  was  going  to  say 
before  I  opened  my  mouth.  This  shot  was  the 
more  telling  because  just  what  made  my  case 
so  desperate  was  that  when  Persis  opened  her 
mouth  no  one  knew  what  she  would  say. 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  155 

Of  course  there  are  swarms  of  breezy  girls 
about,  and  once  in  a  while  they  have  a  touch  of 
naivete  that  isn't  mere  pose.  But  you  don't 
often  come  across  one  with  anything  at  once  so 
simple  and  so  remote  under  her  outer  liveliness. 
I  suppose  that  is  partly  why  Persists  final  rea 
son  for  her  hardness  of  heart  sounds  so  silly. 
She  always  declared  that  she  should  fall  in  love 
with  some  one  quite  different  from  anybody  she 
or  I  had  ever  seen.  She  couldn't  describe  him, 
but  she  would  know  him  the  instant  he  ap 
peared.  And  the  amusing  part  of  it  was  that 
although  I  made  immense  fun  of  Prince  Dia 
dem,  as  I  nicknamed  him,  and  did  my  best  to 
convince  her  that  I  was  that  mysterious  being 
in  disguise,  I  somehow  knew  my  labour  lost. 

We  had,  nevertheless,  for  a  certain  time,  an 
extremely  agreeable  relation.  For  a  good  deal 
of  what  Persis  took  away  with  one  hand  she 
gave  back  with  the  other.  It  pleased  her  to  say 
that  while  other  members  of  her  extensive 
entourage  were  far  more  companionable,  none 
were  so  adept — to  quote  her  own  elegant  phrase 
— at  getting  out  what  bothered  her  inside.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  it  was  given  me  more  than  once 
to  be  edified  to  the  limit  of  edification,  as  they 
say  in  the  Arabian  Nights,  by  my  vivacious 
cousin's  histories. 

None,  however,  was  so  moving — I  might  even 


156  THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

give  it  a  quicker  adjective — as  the  last  of  all. 
It  came  to  me  after  her  death,  in  a  small  sealed 
parcel,  by  the  hand  of  the  elderly  missionary 
whom  Persis  had  married  in  Syria.  I  naturally 
regarded  this  gentleman  with  extreme  curi 
osity.  He  was  a  grave  and  grizzled  individual, 
by  no  means  an  Apollo  to  look  upon,  with  a 
thick  round  beard  and  an  odd  accent.  I  pre 
sume  the  habit  of  another  language  had  af 
fected  his  pronunciation  of  his  own.  What 
struck  me  most  about  him  was  his  fresh,  his 
almost  infantile,  complexion.  He  had  the  colour 
that  monks  occasionally  have.  I  wondered  if  it 
denoted  in  him  what  had  attracted  Persis,  be 
cause  he  didn't  strike  me  otherwise  as  being  in 
the  least  extraordinary.  On  the  contrary,  there 
was  something  I  didn't  like  at  all  in  his  refer 
ences  to  her.  I  won't  pretend,  though,  that  the 
fact  didn't  give  me  a  certain  evil  satisfaction. 
While  Persis  never  was  much  of  a  hand  with 
her  pen — isn't  it  curious  how  often  the  vividest 
personalities  lack  that  power  of  expressing 
themselves? — I  was  quite  unprepared  for  the 
silence  that  fell  between  us  after  her  arrival  in 
this  part  of  the  world.  Out  of  it  came  to  me 
only  the  news  of  her  marriage  and  death,  and 
the  knowledge  that  she  left  no  children.  And 
I  took  it,  bitterly  enough,  for  the  measure  of 
the  completeness  with  which  she  had  fulfilled 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  157 

her  high  destiny.  But  the  sharer  of  it  curiously 
disappointed  me.  Persis  had  been,  for  me,  so 
rare  a  type  that  it  hurt  me  to  prove  her  fine 
anticipations  no  more  than  those  of  any  school 
girl.  I  even  asked  myself — perhaps  there,  too, 
my  vanity  was  touched — whether  I  had  been 
mistaken  in  her. 

I  found  an  unexpected  answer  in  the  parcel 
which  Mr.  Hoyt  delivered  to  me.  He  said  that 
Persis  had  asked  him,  shortly  before  she  died, 
to  give  it  into  my  own  hands.  That,  and  the 
fact  that  I  became  conscious  of  his  eyeing  me  as 
curiously  as  I  did  him,  made  me  refuse  him  the 
satisfaction  of  opening  the  parcel  in  his  pres 
ence.  From  it,  after  he  had  gone  away,  I  un 
wrapped  a  small  sandalwood  box,  not  more  than 
ten  or  twelve  inches  long.  The  box,  which  I 
was  at  some  pains  to  get  into,  contained  a  tight 
roll  of  paper.  As  I  began  to  loosen  it  there  fell 
out  from  between  the  leaves — they  were  cov 
ered,  to  my  surprise,  with  Persists  crooked 
writing — a  smaller  roll  of  purple  silk.  A  human 
enough  curiosity  made  me  look  at  that  first; 
and  I  found,  folded  in  the  silk,  this  miniature 
spear.  The  sight  of  its  soft  antique  gold  and 
the  perfume  of  the  sandalwood  affected  me  with 
the  strangest  sense  of  remote  things.  They  did 
not  affect  me  so  strangely,  however,  as  Persia's 
letter.  And  it  was  not  merely  the  special  com- 


158  THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

bination  of  circumstances.  Otherwise  I  could 
hardly  bring  myself  to  communicate,  even  to 
you,  what  was  so  purely  personal.  As  it  is,  I 
shall  ask  you  not  to  say  anything  till  I  get 
through  reading. 

"...  You  must  have  wondered  why  I  have 
never  written  to  you  all  this  time.  You  couldn't 
know,  of  course,  how  often  I  have  written.  Only 
I  have  always  been  too  proud  to  send  the  letters, 
or  I  had  no  right  to,  or  I  couldn't  make  them  say 
what  I  wanted.  But  there  are  reasons  why  I 
want  you  to  get  this — sometime. 

"There  would  be  the  one  that  I  owe  it  to  you, 
if  there  were  no  others.  You  have  been  more 
to  me  than  you  know.  I  didn't  know  it  myself 
till  I  began  to  find  out  how  much  depends  for 
our  own  development  on  the  people  we  happen 
to  be  thrown  with.  It  was  just  because  you 
were  so  much  to  me  that  you  were  not  every 
thing.  I  mean  that  what  in  you  was  different 
from  the  other  people  I  knew  called  out  what  in 
me  made  it  impossible  for  me  to  marry  you. 
So,  in  a  funny  little  ironical  way,  you  are  bound 
up  with  all  that  has  happened  to  me.  Will  you 
understand  it,  I  wonder?  You  used  to  under 
stand  so  many  things  that  the  rest  of  them 
didn't.  And  somehow  I  never  could  get  them 
out — the  things,  not  the  people! — unless  you 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  159 

were  there.  That's  another  reason  why  I'm 
writing  to  you  now.  I've  lived  so  long  by  my 
self,  sometimes  not  knowing  what  was  happen 
ing  to  me,  and  then  not  being  able  to  tell  it,  that 
I  must  get  this  out  if  I  can.  But  how  I  wish  I 
had  you  solidly  here,  instead  of  the  ghost  of 
you!  It  would  make  me  feel  less  as  if  I  lived 
altogether  in  a  world  of  ghosts.  And  you  re 
member  that  I  could  never  do  anything  with  a 
pen  but  bite  it. 

"I  hardly  know  where  to  begin  with  all  I  want 
to  tell  you.  It's  so  long  since  I've  told  you  any 
thing,  and  things  have  such  a  way  of  beginning 
before  one  knows  it.  Were  you  aware  that  you 
first  put  the  idea  of  Sidon  into  my  head?  Of 
course  there  were  other  ideas  there  for  it  to 
work  with.  One  of  them  was  a  revolt  against 
the  theory  that  a  girl  should  sit  at  home  and 
spin.  I  was  bored,  and  I  could  see  nothing  but 
cotillons  for  myself  to  the  end  of  the  chapter. 
As  a  career  it  didn't  seem  to  lead  to  anything, 
except  favouring  one  of  the  dancers  with  my 
hand.  And  you  know  the  reason,  the  real  rea 
son,  I  used  to  give  you  for  not  marrying  you. 
Well,  I  wanted  to  give  myself  a  better  chance. 
And  I  thought  sincerer  people  could  be  found 
outside  ballrooms  than  in  them.  So  I  came 
here. 

"I  smile  to  this  day  when  I  think  how  beau- 


160  THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

tifully  simple  it  was.  I  knew  no  more  about  the 
religion  I  came  to  teach  than  I  did  about  the  one 
I  came  to  supplant.  I  hadn't  even  a  shadow  of 
what  people  call  religious  conviction.  I  had 
always  taken  everything  of  that  sort  for 
granted.  I  imagined  that  all  you  had  to  do  was 
to  speak  reasonably  to  the  heathen  for  him 
quickly  to  renounce  the  error  of  his  way.  I  was 
quite  as  ignorant  in  other  directions.  I  didn't 
learn  until  I  was  six  thousand  miles  from  home 
that  il  mondo  e  paese,  as  the  Italians  say ;  that 
there  are  insincere  and  foolish  missionaries  as 
there  are  honest  and  human  cotillon  leaders, 
and  that  there  are  Mohammedans  a  good  deal 
less  in  need  of  conversion  than  many  who  con 
tribute  to  have  them  converted.  But  when  I 

began  to  find  these  things  out I  wouldn't 

want  to  go  through  that  time  again.  I  never 
needed  you  so  much.  I  was  too  proud  to  tell 
you,  though.  That  was  why  I  stopped  writing. 
And  that  was  all  that  kept  me  from  going  back 
home.  I  was  too  proud  to  confess  that  I  had 
made  a  mistake.  But  now  it  is  all  over  I  regret 
nothing.  I  probably  could  never  have  learned 
my  lesson  in  any  other  way.  If  I  haven't  been 
a  missionary  with  conviction  I  have  at  least 
found  that  so  long  as  pain  and  misunderstand 
ing  are  in  the  world  there  will  be  enough  for  me 
to  do  without  raising  questions  of  creed.  And 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  161 

then  if  I  hadn't  come But  that  is  what  I'm 

trying  to  tell  you. 

"I  say  I  do  not  regret.  The  one  thing  I  regret 
is  the  unhappiness  I  have  caused  to  one  who 
had  a  right  to  expect  happiness  of  me.  Will  you 
understand  if  I  tell  you  quite  simply  what  I 
have  often  been  on  the  edge  of  telling  you,  that 
Mr.  Hoyt  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  I  ever 
would  have  dreamed  of  marrying?  You  know 
the  idea  I  used  to  have.  I  don't  know  whether 
all  girls  have  it  so  distinctly.  At  any  rate,  the 
face  I  was  always  trying  to  picture  to  myself, 
that  I  more  or  less  unblushingly  came  to  look 
for — I  found  it  among  these  good  people  as  lit 
tle  as  any  of  the  other  things  I  expected.  So  I 
put  that  illusion  away  with  the  rest  of  them. 
I  concluded  that  it  might  be  something  of  an 
art  to  take  life  as  it  came,  to  build  what  one 
could  out  of  one's  mistakes.  I  accordingly 
agreed  to  marry  Mr.  Hoyt.  He  was  as  good  and 
as  honest  a  man  as  I  was  likely  to  come  across, 
and  he  knew  perfectly  well  that  I  had  no  pas 
sion  for  him.  That  was  to  be  my  reparation  for 
thinking  that  girls  should  not  sit  at  home  and 
spin.  And  I  had  a  real  curiosity,  after  all  my 
high-flown  ideas,  to  play  out  the  game  to  the 
end  and  fulfil  the  common  lot  of  womankind. 
I  thought  that  must  be  the  supreme  relation, 
with  life  itself,  in  all  its  variety  and  indiffer- 


162  THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

ence,  instead  of  with  one  person.  But — let  me 
try  to  tell  you. 

"We  were  married  very  soon,  without  any 
fuss.  That  is  one  of  the  things  I  most  like  out 
here — the  freedom  from  fuss.  We  did  make  a 
journey  afterward,  but  that,  too,  was  different 
from  what  it  would  have  been  at  home.  We 
took  our  ordinary  touring  paraphernalia — you 
can  hardly  have  lived  so  long  over  here  without 
learning  that  we  'tour' — and  started  on  horse 
back  down  the  coast.  We  planned  to  avoid 
'out-stations'  as  much  as  possible,  and  to  do 
some  of  the  sightseeing  that  we  had  never  had 
time  for.  This  desolate  old  Phoenician  country 
gave  me  a  dreadful  sinking  of  the  heart  when  I 
first  saw  it.  And  it  came  to  seem  to  me,  with 
all  its  flatness  and  its  ruins  of  other  times, 
merely  a  dismal  counterpart  of  my  own  life. 
But  in  the  end  it  began  to  tell  me  a  different 
story. 

"Our  first  camp  was  at  a  place  where  some 
tombs  had  been  found  a  few  months  before. 
This  is  such  an  out-of-the-way  part  of  the  world 
that  no  proper  attention  had  been  paid  to  them, 
and  there  were  rumours  of  things  that  had  been 
stolen  or  destroyed.  Our  tents  were  ready  for 
us  when  we  arrived,  in  a  charming  sheltered 
hollow  near  the  sea.  And  our  man  had  a  piece 
of  news  for  us.  It  seemed  that  the  owner  of 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  163 

the  adjoining  vineyard,  while  starting  to  dig  a 
reservoir,  had  discovered  a  mysterious  door  in 
the  rock.  It  might  be  the  entrance  to  another 
tomb,  but  no  one  could  open  it.  The  proprietor 
had  tried,  and  the  soldiers  had  tried,  and  they 
were  all  on  the  point  of  cutting  each  other's 
throats  about  it.  You  know  how  little  love  is 
lost  between  Arabs  and  Turks. 

"I  don't  know  whether  you  are  interested 
enough  in  that  sort  of  thing  to  have  heard 
about  the  affair.  You  and  I  never  talked  archae 
ology  in  the  old  days!  But  the  archaeological 
world  never  had  the  truth  of  the  matter,  or 
more  than  a  part  of  it.  Of  course  Mr.  Hoyt 
himself  is  not  an  archaeologist,  and  the  reports 
were  so  contradictory  that  the  real  archaeolo 
gists  never  could  straighten  them  out.  Besides 
which  they  were  too  much  occupied  with  ques 
tions  of  identity  to  trouble  themselves  about 
anything  else.  So  I  can  only  tell  you  everything 
as  it  happened,  without  minding  how  much  you 
may  or  may  not  have  heard  before. 

"The  place  was  finally  opened,  you  know,  with 
blasting  powder.  We  heard  them  at  it  while 
we  were  eating  supper.  And  we  didn't  wonder 
when  we  saw  the  door.  It  was  a  kind  of  im 
mense  wheel  of  stone,  fitting  into  grooves  at  the 
base  of  a  rocky  ledge  and  offering  no  kind  of 
hold.  We  couldn't  imagine  how  it  was  ever  put 


164  THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

there.  There  were  other  things  to  speculate 
about,  however,  for  the  door  opened  upon  a  sort 
of  chamber  or  passage,  cut  out  of  the  solid  rock. 
We  found  it  full  of  Bedouins  and  soldiers  and 
smoky  lights,  crowded  excitedly  toward  the 
inner  end,  where  there  was  another  door.  This 
was  a  doorway  rather,  filled  in  with  masonry 
and  surrounded  by  a  highly  polished  egg-and- 
arrow  border.  And  above  it,  cut  also  in  the 
rock,  was  an  inscription  which  the  owner  told 
us  was  in  some  strange  language  no  one  could 
read.  But  when  he  had  the  men  stand  back  and 
held  up  a  torch  for  us  to  see  it  Mr.  Hoyt  recog 
nized  some  Greek  writing  which  he  afterward 
translated  like  this: 

"  'Have  reverence,  0  comer  in  the  night,  for 
the  house  of  the  dead.  Turn,  turn  away,  while 
it  yet  is  time.  It  is  not  for  such  as  thou  to 
break  the  sleep  of  kings.  For  so  shall  the  peace 
that  remembers  neither  pain  nor  woe  cease  to 
scatter  its  shadow  on  thine  own  eyes.  Thou 
shalt  behold  no  more  the  sweet  light  of  thy 
country.  The  voices  of  men  thou  shalt  not 
hear,  but  only  the  beasts  of  the  desert  whose 
mouths  are  avid  with  vengeance,  or  the  cruel 
lashing  of  the  sea  upon  the  rocks.  And  thou 
who  mightest  choose  a  happier  lot,  thou 
shalt  prefer  the  enmity  of  the  all-seeing  gods. 
Turn,  then,  turn  away,  while  it  yet  is  time.  It 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  165 

is  not  for  such  as  thou  to  break  the  sleep  of 
kings/ 

"I  didn't  wonder  that  the  men  were  visibly 
moved  as  Mr.  Hoyt  spelled  it  out  to  them.  In 
that  dark  rock  chamber,  above  the  Tyrian  sea, 
with  its  flaring  lights  and  its  ancient  inscrip 
tion  and  its  mysterious  walled  door,  one  could 
believe  anything  ghostly  or  incredible.  But  the 
feeling  between  the  two  parties  soon  rose  again 
in  them  more  strongly  than  any  other.  So  it 
was  not  long  before  they  picked  a  hole  in  the 
masonry.  When  it  was  about  wide  enough  for 
a  cat  to  squeeze  through  they  sent  a  boy,  a  most 
unwilling  one,  in  to  scout.  He  squeezed  back 
almost  immediately,  reporting  nothing  very 
definite  except  that  it  was  wet  inside.  But  his 
bare  feet  were  flaked  with  gold-leaf. 

"You  can  imagine  how  much  that  did  to  quiet 
the  excitement.  The  proprietor  insisted  more 
than  ever  upon  his  right  to  his  own  property, 
while  the  officer  in  command  of  the  soldiers 
declared  he  was  there  to  prevent  the  govern 
ment  from  being  robbed.  I  don't  know  what 
might  not  have  happened  if  we  hadn't  been 
there.  As  it  was,  they  took  our  advice  to  wait 
till  the  next  day  before  doing  anything  else.  It 
seemed  they  thought  we  had  the  more  right  to 
be  heard  because  there  must  be  some  relation 
ship  between  infidels  who  could  read  the  strange 


166  THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

inscription  and  the  infidels  who  had  put  it 
there !  But  seeing  that  each  side  was  still  dis 
trustful  of  the  other,  we  said  we  would  keep 
watch  with  them.  Which  we  accordingly  did. 
We  established  ourselves  with  rugs  and  cush 
ions  at  the  entrance  to  the  tomb,  with  Turk 
ish  and  Arab  sentinels  picketed  on  each  side 
of  us. 

' There  was  no  moon,  but  there  was  that  star 
light  which  is  only  of  the  south — a  light  of  great 
mild  liquid  summer  stars,  hanging  so  near  us, 
so  near,  in  a  sky  that  velvet  is  too  stuffy  a  word 
to  describe.  Not  far  away  the  sea  was,  at  the 
foot  of  the  grassy  plateau  of  olives,  facing  the 
ledge.  We  could  make  it  out  dimly  between  the 
trees  by  the  rippling  reflections  of  the  stars, 
and  the  darkness  was  full  of  its  lapping.  The 
only  other  sound  we  could  hear  was  the  far 
away  bark  of  a  jackal,  or  once  in  a  while  the 
soft  whirr  of  a  bat.  I  remember,  too,  how 
strange  the  olive-trees  looked,  ancient  and 
twisted  beyond  any  I  ever  saw.  The  phantoms 
moving  vaguely  between  them  only  made  them 
more  so.  They  were  Bedouins  and  soldiers,  I 
suppose,  hoping  that  we  would  fall  asleep  or  go 
to  our  tent.  But  I  never  felt  less  like  it.  I 
never  had  so  realized  before  that  night  is  the 
true  time  of  this  country,  when  everything  that 
is  forbidding  about  it  disappears.  I  had  never 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  167 

so  realized  the  country  itself.  The  purple  of 
Tyre,  the  light  of  Greece,  the  gold  of  Rome,  the 
strange  work  of  the  nomads — I  had  found  them 
here  as  little  as  most  people  find  the  beauty  of 
faded  tapestry  or  a  Byzantine  mosaic.  Its  deso 
lation  spoke  to  me  at  last,  however — a  desola 
tion  as  different  from  the  wildness  of  America 
as  that  is  from  the  order  of  Europe.  All  the 
passion  and  tragedy  of  centuries  seem  to  have 
gone  into  it.  There  is  something  old  and  wise 
and  sad  about  it,  after  which  other  countries 
look  as  pretty  and  empty  as  children.  But  to 
whom  do  I  write! 

"I  suppose  the  time  and  the  place  had  a  good 
deal  to  do  with  making  that  night  so  memorable 
to  me.  But  you  remember,  too,  what  night  it 
was.  Have  you  ever  felt  a  kind  of  mortified 
surprise  to  find  how  humdrum  life  is  in  the 
making?  It  always  makes  me  think  of  when  I 
broke  through  the  ice  once,  ages  ago,  and  how  I 
thought  as  I  went  down  that  something  had 
really  happened  to  me  at  last,  and  how  aston 
ished  I  was  to  find  it  so  prosaic,  and  to  be  chiefly 
conscious  of  how  I  might  have  prevented  it. 
Well,  my  wedding  affected  me  in  just  the  same 
way.  After  all  I  had  gone  through  to  make  up 
my  mind  to  it,  I  wondered  how  it  could  possibly 
leave  me  just  the  same  as  before.  That  night, 
however,  something  really  did  happen  to  me. 


168  THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

Sitting  there  in  the  starlight  under  those  old 
olive-trees,  listening  to  the  ancient  voice  of  the 
sea,  I  saw  the  role  I  had  chosen  in  cold  blood  with 
a  sudden  intensity  of  feeling  that  amounted 
almost  to  passion.  I  saw  life  dissolve  and 
reform  under  my  fingers  in  a  way  that  made  me 
believe  that  my  husband  might  be,  after  all,  the 
veiled  image  of  my  dream. 

"Before  we  knew  it  the  sea  began  to  whiten 
under  our  eyes.  After  that  it  wasn't  long  before 
the  owner  of  the  vineyard  appeared  with  his 
workmen,  followed  by  the  Turkish  officer  and 
some  more  soldiers.  They  lost  no  time  in  set 
ting  to  work  with  their  picks  at  the  inner  door 
of  the  tomb.  We  sat  watching  them  in  a 
silence,  or  I  did,  which  I  suppose  was  a  part  of 
my  mood  of  exaltation.  But  the  sound  of  the 
picks  was  portentous.  One  could  not  help  think 
ing  of  the  inscription  over  the  door.  Yet  the 
very  fact  that  we  should  desecrate  the  place, 
parvenus  from  the  newest  of  countries  as  we 
were,  gave  me  such  a  strange  dream-like  pic 
ture  of  the  world  as  I  saw  the  dawn  brighten 
between  the  olive-trees,  rare  and  exquisite  as  it 
had  been  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  years  be 
fore,  when  this  place  was  first  hewn  out  and 

And  what?  That  question  as  to  what  we  were 
to  find  grew  into  a  suspense  that  overpowered 
everything  else.  Even  the  men  stood  still  a 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  169 

moment    when    they    had    widened    the    hole 
enough  to  get  through. 

"The  first  thing  I  saw  was  a  great  carved 
sarcophagus,  extraordinarily  huge  and  white  in 
the  gloom.  Then  as  our  candles  caught  one 
point  and  another  it  came  over  me  that  the 
gloom  was  of  gold.  Did  you  ever  really  see  gold — 
enough  of  it,  I  mean  ?  The  tomb  was  completely 
sheathed  in  plates  of  gold — floor,  walls,  ceiling 
— that  gave  out  the  strangest  warm  lustre  as 
the  men  moved  about  with  their  lights.  And 
in  the  middle  of  it  all,  behind  the  sarcophagus 
nearest  the  door,  stood  seven  others,  all 
shadowy  white  and  all  set  about  with  gleaming 
'gold  things,  just  as  they  had  been  left  centuries 
before — except  that  water  had  worked  its  way 
into  the  vault  and  had  loosened  the  leaf  from 
some  of  the  plates.  You  have  probably  seen 
them  yourself,  the  sarcophagi,  in  the  Stamboul 
Museum.  But  you  will  never  see  them  as  we 
did.  Least  of  all  the  great  one  we  saw  first. 
They  say  it  is  of  a  decadent  period,  and  stolen 
into  the  bargain.  However  that  may  be,  there 
was  something  frightening  about  its  beauty 
when  we  first  broke  in  upon  it,  with  its  reliefs 
representing  a  combat  between  Greeks  and  bar 
barians,  and  all  its  exquisite  decorative  details. 
And  then  each  uplifted  hand  held  a  little  gold 
javelin,  and  each  chlamys,  faintly  painted  with 


170  THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

red  or  purple  or  green,  was  fastened  at  the 
shoulder  with  a  tiny  jewelled  buckle.  You 
should  have  seen  them  glitter  in  the  candle 
light,  against  the  polished  marble ! 

"I  can't  begin  to  give  you  an  idea  of  the  mag 
nificence  of  that  mortuary  chamber.  It  affected 
me  to  a  degree  that  I  can  neither  describe  nor 
account  for.  Without  knowing  anything  about 
them,  I  have  always  loved  beautiful  things.  And 
here  were  beautiful  things  come  upon  under  cir 
cumstances  that  made  their  beauty  something 
unearthly.  The  jagged  hole  through  which  we 
had  come,  where  I  could  see  a  bent  olive  and 
the  far-away  morning  shine  of  the  sea,  only 
emphasized  it.  When  Mr.  Hoyt  pointed  out  to 
me  a  figure  of  the  principal  sarcophagus,  a 
young  man  on  horseback,  holding  a  spear  longer 
than  the  others,  decorated  with  a  design  of  bay 
leaves,  I  couldn't  bear  it  any  longer.  The  only 
thing  I  wanted  was  to  be  alone.  I  burst  out 
crying  and  ran  away  to  my  tent. 

"What  with  sitting  up  all  night  and  the  vari 
ous  excitements  I  had  gone  through,  I  suppose 
I  must  have  been  tired  out.  At  any  rate,  I  slept 
for  ten  hours  without  stirring.  When  I  woke 
up,  late  in  the  afternoon,  I  hardly  knew  where 
I  was.  I  couldn't  imagine,  either,  why  Mr.  Hoyt 
should  be  sitting  familiarly  by  my  bed,  reading 
the  Missionary  Herald.  Then  I  remembered. 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  171 

And  I  felt  once  more  as  I  did  that  time  I  went 
through  the  ice.  I  wondered  how,  after  having 
been  so  wrought  up,  I  could  be  so  indifferent, 
and  find  it  so  characteristic  of  Mr.  Hoyt  that 
although  he  had  slept  much  less  than  I  he 
should  not  have  gone  back  to  the  tomb.  He  was 
perfectly  willing  to  go  when  I  proposed  it,  how 
ever — on  condition  we  should  first  have  tea. 

"We  hardly  recognized  the  tomb  when  we  got 
there.  It  had  been  stripped  of  its  gold  sheath 
ing,  all  the  vases  and  other  portable  things  in  it 
had  been  carried  away,  and  the  little  spears  and 
buckles  had  been  picked  off  the  great  sarcoph 
agus.  They  had  even  pried  up  its  cover,  in  the 
hope  of  finding  further  booty,  and  in  doing  so 
had  contrived  to  break  off  some  of  the  rams' 
heads  of  its  cornice.  The  Turkish  officer 
politely  explained  that  the  governor  had 
ordered  the  things  to  be  removed  to  his  house 
for  safekeeping  until  some  one  should  come 
down  from  Constantinople  to  take  them  in, 
charge.  But  I  never  heard  that  any  of  them 
ever  turned  up  at  the  Seraglio,  and  it  struck  me 
that  there  was  something  suspicious  in  the 
amicable  terms  at  which  the  rival  parties  had 
apparently  arrived.  They  made  haste  to  cover 
their  confusion,  however,  if  they  felt  any,  and 
our  own  manifest  horror,  by  telling  us  of  a 
further  discovery  they  had  just  made. 


172  THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

"I  had  noticed  an  aromatic  perfume  that  I 
didn't  remember  as  being  there  before.  And 
when  the  officer  pointed  to  the  open  sarcoph 
agus  and  placed  a  stool  where  I  could  look  into 
it,  I  was  conscious  at  first  only  of  that  aromatic 
odour,  which  was  stranger  than  anything  of  the 
kind  I  had  ever  known.  Then  I  began  to  make 
out  in  the  darkness  below  me  the  figure  of  a 
young  man.  At  the  moment  I  didn't  notice 
what  the  reflection  of  my  candle  showed  me 
later,  that  his  body  was  immersed  in  a  clear 
pale-amber  liquid.  I  merely  saw  him  lying 
there  in  the  shadow  of  the  marble,  so  beautiful 
and  so  life-like  that  he  might  have  been 
Endymion  asleep. 

"The  thing  was  incredible  enough  in  itself. 
I  needn't  tell  you  how  incredible  it  was  to  look 
bodily  into  a  face  that  had  seen  so  different  a 
world  from  ours.  But  I  was  scarcely  conscious 
of  that— still  less  of  any  wonder  as  to  the  iden 
tity  of  the  young  prince  who  had  been  buried 
there  with  such  splendour.  On  the  contrary,  I 
had  the  most  amazing  shock  of  recognition.  I 
thought  at  first  it  was  because  of  his  resem 
blance  to  the  figure  carved  outside  the  sarcoph 
agus — so  slowly  do  our  thoughts  travel  behind 
the  darker  parts  of  consciousness.  But  then  I 
knew,  with  an  intensity  of  conviction  that  left 
me  faint,  that Oh,  I  don't  know  how  to 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  173 

put  it.  Every-day  words  don't  seem  to  do  for 
things  that  were  so  far  from  every  day.  How 
can  I  tell  you,  as  I  would  tell  you  about  the 
weather,  that — that  the  face  of  the  sarcoph 
agus  was  the  face  I  had  always  been  looking 
for,  that  until  a  few  months  before  I  had 
always  been  sure  I  should  find?  But  it  was  so 
— it  was  so.  Every  drop  of  blood  in  me  told  me 
it  was  so.  And  when  in  the  first  tremor  of  my 
knowledge  I  looked  up  and  saw  on  the  other 
side  of  the  sarcophagus  the  face  of  the  man  who 
was  my  husband,  I  knew  only  more  hopelessly 
it  was  so. 

"Perhaps  I  am  mad,  as  poor  Mr.  Hoyt  thinks. 
I  don't  know.  I  only  know  that  I  never  could 
look  at  him  again  as  other  than  a  stranger.  Of 
course  I  have  ways  of  putting  it  to  myself — 
that  illusions  are  not  illusions  unless  you  believe 
them  so — that  I  never  really  saw  my  husband 
or  myself  until  I  looked  into  that  sarcophagus. 
But  I  often  wonder  if  it  isn't  true  that  strange 
dark  things  move  inside  of  us,  that  urge  us,  in 
spite  of  ourselves,  to  ends  we  don't  know.  I 
have  sensations  sometimes  of  belonging  to 
another  world,  of  communicating  in  inexplicable 
ways.  I  often  look  at  the  good  simple  normal 
people  about  me  and  wonder  what  they  would 
think  if  they  knew,  if  they  really  knew.  Some 
times  I  envy  them,  too;  but  I'm  afraid  I've 


174  THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN 

oftener  had  a  sort  of  contempt  for  their  poor 
muffled  lives.  The  whole  affair  has  given  me 
such  a  sense  of  the  irony  of  things  that  if  I 
hadn't  also  gained  a  growing  sense  of  the  pity 
and  the  passing  of  things  I  don't  quite  know 
what  would  have  become  of  me  here.  But  I 
have  been  happy,  too — if  there  is  such  a  thing. 
It  so  invariably  seems  to  involve  unhappiness, 
and  it  is  so  little  the  end  of  life.  I  have  had  an 
almost  fierce  happiness  in  my  secret,  and  I  have 
had  the  bitter  happiness  which  is  to  know.  Per 
haps,  after  all,  I  have  proved  that  the  supreme 
relation  is  with  life  itself. 

"Oh  well,  words — what  have  they  ever  told  in 
the  world?  But  you  can  see  how  all  my  cur 
rents  have  necessarily  turned  in,  and  how  I  need 
some  one  to  know  and  understand.  And  then  I 
want  to  send  you  this  little  javelin.  It  was 
brought  to  me  long  afterward  by  a  jeweller  in 
Bei'rout,  who  said  he  had  bought  it  from  a  sol 
dier.  Can  you  understand  my  dishonesty  in 
not  sending  it  to  the  Museum?  I  couldn't — I 
couldn't.  It  was  my  only  link My  hus 
band  has  never  seen  it,  and  I  don't  want  him  to 
after  I  am  dead.  He — you  know.  So  I  wish  you 
would  take  it  to  the  Museum  and  put  it  back 
into  the  hand  of  the  figure  you  will  find.  I 
would  like  him  to  have  it  again.  And  it  will  be 
another  link. 


THE  GOLDEN  JAVELIN  175 

"You  know  he  saved  himself — the  young 
prince.  I  don't  know  whether  it  was  the  con 
tact  of  the  air  or  the  evaporation  of  the  liquor 
or  what,  but  he  saved  himself.  He  stayed  only 
long  enough  for  me  to  find  him,  after  they  had 
broken  into  his  golden  room.  When  they  came 
to  take  him  away  he  was  gone.  And  I  shall  go, 
and  you  will  go,  and  only  the  sarcophagus  will 
remain,  and  the  one  little  javelin  that  I  have 
had  so  long,  and  no  one  will  know.  Dreams — 
dreams " 


HIS  BEATITUDE 

It   takes   three   Jews   to   cheat  a   Greek,   and    three 
Greeks  to  cheat  an  Armenian. 

— LEVANTINE  PROVERB. 


WERE  mine  a  high  and  moving  tale,  I 
might  announce  my  hero  by  saying 
that  on  a  certain  August  morning  a 
man  of  striking  appearance  was  seen  to  make 
his  way  down  that  crowded  street  of  Galata 
which  opens  to  the  Bridge.  As  it  is,  I  can  only 
point  out  that  such  an  announcement  would 
apply  with  equal  exactness  to  several  thousand 
individuals,  and  that  while  one  of  them  did  hap 
pen  to  be  concerned  with  the  present  narrative, 
he  would  have  been  the  last  to  catch  a  curious 
eye.  He  was  merely  a  well-dressed,  well-made 
and  not  ill-looking  young  Armenian,  with  less  of 
the  Semite  in  his  face  than  his  people  often 
show.  That  he  was  a  person  of  the  better  sort 
was  evident  from  his  gold-tipped  cigarette 
holder,  from  the  portentous  length  of  his  little 
finger  nail,  and  from  the  modish  cane  which  he 

176 


HIS  BEATITUDE  177 

swung  in  palpable  ease  of  heart.  But  for  the 
frivolity  of  the  word  I  might  say  that  he 
tripped  along,  so  light-footed  was  the  gait  with 
which  he  passed  the  white-smocked  toll-keeper 
and  started  to  cross  the  Bridge.  Presently, 
however,  he  stayed  his  steps,  to  approach  one 
of  the  peddlers  who  stood  along  the  railing. 
And  in  the  extremely  unattractive  assortment 
of  pins,  needles,  hooks,  eyes,  buttons  and  bod 
kins  displayed  upon  a  tray  by  this  individual  he 
proceeded  to  rummage. 

"Have  you  seen  the  paper  this  morning?" 
inquired  the  pedler  in  Armenian,  as  if  conver 
sation  with  this  fine  young  man  were  more  to 
him  than  commerce. 

"I  have  seen  the  paper,  Minas,"  replied  the 
fine  young  man.  His  own  name,  I  might  inform 
you,  was  Arakel — and  you  are  to  accent  it,  like 
those  of  his  friends,  on  the  last  syllable. 

"Well?" 

"Well !  It  says  what  it  says  every  day — that 
he  is  dying." 

"Holy  saints !"  exclaimed  the  pedler.  "If " 

At  that  moment  a  second  customer  arrived 
and  began  to  fumble  in  company  with  Arakel. 
The  young  man  thereupon  withdrew  from  the 
field. 

"I  don't  find  anything,"  he  said,  fixing  Minas 
with  his  eye ;  "I  am  going  over  to  the  other  side." 


178  HIS  BEATITUDE 

The  pedler,  a  powerful  fellow  with  the  flat 
head,  the  narrow  brow,  and  the  hooked  nose  of 
his  race,  kept  him  in  disappointed  view  until 
he  was  lost  in  the  crowd.  As  for  Arakel,  he 
lost  nothing  of  his  careless  pace.  Threading 
his  way  through  the  motley  multitude  he  passed 
in  turn  the  landings  of  the  various  steamer 
companies  which  have  termini  at  the  Bridge. 
Before  reaching  the  Stamboul  end,  however,  he 
found  occasion  to  approach  another  pedler. 

"How  is  business,  Levon?"  he  asked,  finger 
ing  the  shoestrings  which  hung  in  a  great  sheaf 
from  the  man's  arm. 

"Would  I  be  here  if  there  were  business?" 
demanded  the  pedler.  "I  watch  until  I  am  blind, 
and  never  a  soul  do  I  see.  I  don't  believe  he 
exists." 

"He  must  exist!"  laughed  Arakel.  "He  shall 
exist!  And  you  will  see  him  better  if  you 
stand  a  little  farther  over — there,  where  the 
people  spread  out  more  after  leaving  the 
steamers." 

"Well,  perhaps  he  does  exist,"  grumbled 
Levon  as  he  changed  his  post.  "But  that  does 
us  no  good  if  he  hasn't  the  sense  to  come  in 
time." 

"He  must  have  the  sense !  He  shall  have  the 
sense!"  laughed  Arakel  again,  patting  the 
other's  shoulder.  "And  if  he  hasn't,  why — we 


HIS  BEATITUDE  179 

have  enough  to  manage  it  in  spite  of  him. 
Good-bye.  I'll  see  you  to-night  if  not  before." 
With  which  our  fine  young  man  moved  away. 
He  did  not  move,  however,  in  the  direction  one 
would  have  expected  him  to  take.  Instead  of 
proceeding  to  Stamboul  he  retraced  his  steps 
toward  Galata.  And  then  again  he  performed 
the  unexpected.  He  went  down  the  first  stair 
way  leading  to  the  landing  of  the  Mahsousseh 
boats,  walked  to  the  cafe  commanding  the  view 
of  both  approaches,  and  established  himself  at 
a  table  whose  waiter  greeted  him  as  a  habitue. 
Although  he  was  promptly  provided  with  coffee 
and  paper,  neither  seemed  much  to  occupy  him. 
Indeed,  neither  could  have  occupied  him  for  so 
long  as  he  stayed.  What  seemed  to  interest 
him  was  watching  the  people  as  they  passed — 
people  going  to  and  coming  from  the  steamers. 
What  was  a  little  curious  about  it,  though,  was 
that  he  did  not  watch  like  a  mere  spectator.  He 
did  not  allow  his  eye  to  be  caught,  to  follow  a 
figure  until  it  disappeared,  and  then  to  wander 
idly  back.  He  seemed  to  watch  with  an  idea. 
He  let  no  face  escape  him.  Sometimes  he  leaned 
out  of  his  chair  for  a  better  view  of  one  that 
was  partly  hidden.  But  he  did  not  scrutinize. 
He  did  not  hesitate.  There  was  no  uncertainty 
about  it.  It  was  like  one  who  turns  over  a  pack 
of  cards  looking  for  the  joker. 


180  HIS  BEATITUDE 

II 

Why  it  was  that  Arakel  chose  as  his  coign  of 
observation  that  particular  cafe  of  that  par 
ticular  landing  could  scarcely  have  been  told  by 
an  outsider  to  his  idea.  Those  asthmatic  steam 
ers,  wreckage  of  prouder  days  upon  the  Danube 
and  the  Thames,  which  ply  on  broken  wing  be 
tween  the  city,  the  Princes'  Islands,  and  the 
sunny  Gulf  of  Nicomedia — why  were  they  more 
to  his  purpose  than  the  swift  ferries  of  the  Bos- 
phorus  ?  But  that  there  was  matter  to  his  idea 
was  proven  at  the  end  of  the  morning  on  which 
we  make  his  acquaintance.  For  suddenly  leav 
ing  his  seat  he  made  after  some  one  in  the 
stream  of  passengers  issuing  from  the  Prinkipo 
boat. 

This  was  an  old  man — the  most  wonderful, 
the  most  beautiful  old  man  whom  one  could  pos 
sibly  imagine.  From  his  dress  it  would  have 
been  difficult  to  make  him  out — which  indeed 
Arakel  found.  It  was  not  exactly  clerical,  yet 
it  was  not  quite  secular;  though  it  was  wholly 
plain  and  worn.  The  old  man  might  have  been 
a  priest  somehow  sunken  to  the  care  of  his 
family,  or  he  might  have  been  the  gardener  of 
a  monastery.  But  the  white  hair  covering  his 
shoulders,  the  white  beard  falling  to  his  waist, 
gave  him  an  air  of  the  patriarchal  which  was 


HIS  BEATITUDE  181 

indescribably  sweetened  by  a  gentleness  of  eye 
and  smile.  If  it  was  possible  for  him  to  be  more 
perfect,  his  great  height  made  him  so.  In  short, 
as  I  have  said,  he  was  the  most  wonderful  old 
man  imaginable. 

Arakel  followed  him  a  moment,  ascertained 
that  he  was  alone,  saw  him  hesitate  between  the 
two  exits  to  the  Bridge.  Then  he  stepped  for 
ward  and  made  a  profound  salute. 

"Good  morning,  father,"  he  said.  "Give  me 
God's  blessing." 

The  old  man  offered  no  reply,  but  he  made  a 
gesture  half  of  appeal  and  half  of  deprecation. 

Arakel  increased  at  once  the  amenity  of  his 
regard  and  the  keenness  of  his  observation. 
The  eyes,  the  nose,  the  hands — everything  was 
right.  It  is  only  your  dilettante,  however,  who 
sticks  unquailing  to  his  generalizations.  Your 
expert  will  never  be  dumbfounded  to  find  his 
Armenian  turn  out  a  Jew  or  even  a  Greek.  Still, 
our  young  man  ventured: 

"Have  you  far  to  go  ?" 

The  old  man  sighed. 

"I  do  not  know,"  he  answered — in  Armenian. 

"Ah — it  is  a  hot  morning.  Do  me  the  honour 
to  come  into  this  cafe  and  take  a  coffee  with 
me."  The  amenity  of  Arakel  became  unction. 

Again  saying  nothing,  the  old  man  allowed 
himself  to  be  led  to  one  of  the  little  tables. 


182  HIS  BEATITUDE 

There  he  sat,  alike  inscrutable  in  his  silence  and 
in  his  benignity.  The  fragrance  of  the  smoking 
zarfs,  however,  when  the  waiter  set  them  down, 
seemed  to  touch  him  to  expression. 

"Son,"  he  said,  "you  are  good.  There — there 
— they  were  not  good."  He  made  a  vague  mo 
tion  with  his  hand. 

"On  the  island?"  suggested  Arakel. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  old  man.    "On  the  island." 

So  far,  so  good.    But  Arakel  wondered. 

"Where  was  the  house?"  he  asked. 

"Oh — far,"  said  the  old  man.  "Far.  And  up 
— there  were  the  pines,  and  down — there  was 
the  sea.  Far,  yes.  And  they  were  not  good. 
There  was  only  the  little  Marie.  But  she  went 
away.  And  then  I  went,  too — far." 

To  which  Arakel  quickly  made  answer: 

"Father,  come  to-night  to  me.  I  am  alone  in 
the  world.  I  have  nothing  but  an  empty  house, 
a  solitary  garden.  Let  us  share  them  together !" 

An  ordinary  old  man  would  have  betrayed 
some  excess  of  emotion,  of  curiosity,  of  repug 
nance.  This  old  man  had  none.  He  merely 
smiled  and  said  : 

"Son,  you  are  good." 

And  then  he  gave  himself  as  in  a  dream  to 
contemplation  of  the  spectacle  which  his  com 
panion  had  hitherto  found  so  engrossing.  The 
latter,  however,  had  now  other  ideas  in  mind. 


HIS  BEATITUDE  183 

After  a  certain  interval  he  said  "Come,"  and 
taking  the  old  man's  arm  he  led  the  way  to 
the  main  level  of  the  Bridge.  They  made  a 
curious  couple  as  they  walked  toward  the  Stam- 
boul  side — the  shabby  old  man  and  the  smart 
young  one.  But  they  were  not  more  curious 
than  many  another  pair  that  stumbled  across 
that  hot  highway;  nor,  perhaps,  was  their 
errand  so  strange  as  that  of  the  first  man  to 
whom  they  might  have  spoken. 

Yet  they  did  speak  to  a  man — or  Arakel  did. 
It  was  indeed  to  Levon,  the  vendor  of  shoe 
strings,  whom  we  have  already  seen.  This  per 
sonage  was  apparently  more  interested  in  the 
companion  than  in  the  patronage  of  Arakel. 
For  it  was  the  latter  who,  after  fingering  at  his 
leisure  in  the  sheaf  of  laces,  spoke  first. 

"So  I  have  found,"  he  said,  "exactly  what  I 
wanted.  They  told  me  it  didn't  exist,  but  I  told 
them  it  did!" 

"Oh,  yes!"  exclaimed  Levon,  coming  back 
with  a  start :  "These !"  and  he  pulled  out  a  pair 
of  laces.  He  could  not,  however,  keep  his  eyes 
off  the  old  man. 

That  gentle  person,  unmoved  by  the  flow  of 
the  bizarre  world  about  him,  smiled  without 
eagerness  and  without  ennui.  Levon  shifted 
under  it,  and  Arakel,  with  his  superior  knowl 
edge,  smiled  as  well. 


184  HIS  BEATITUDE 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "those.  And  now  I  am  going 
home.  When  you  have  found  what  you  want, 
why  stay  out  longer  ?  And  then,  too,  it  is  better 
not  to  let  too  many  people  see.  You  might 
lose  it." 

With  which  he  led  the  way  to  the  landing  of 
the  Bosphorus  boats. 

Ill 

If  the  solitary  garden  to  which  Arakel  had 
referred  was  made  less  solitary  by  the  arrival 
of  an  inmate,  it  must  be  said  that,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  number  of  habitues  at  the  Bridge  was 
diminished  by  three.  But  it  is  likely  enough  that 
the  addition  made  more  difference  in  the  one 
than  did  the  decrease  to  the  other.  Since  the 
days  of  the  Pasha  who  had  loved  his  narrow 
strip  of  hillside  enough  to  flatten  his  house  into 
a  long  corridor  against  the  rising  slope,  I  think 
no  one  had  so  appreciated  that  terrace  of  many 
trees  as  our  old  man.  He  continued  to  have  no 
words.  He  merely  smiled,  as  if  his  heart  were 
full  of  patience  and  peace.  So  Arakel,  while 
treating  him  with  unfailing  deference,  soon  left 
him  to  wander  by  himself  under  the  tragic 
cedars  of  Lebanon  and  the  cheerful  copper 
beeches  which  the  Pasha  had  taught  to  live  in 
strange  conjunction  before  the  rambling  house. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  old  man  found 


HIS  BEATITUDE  05 

what  the  Pasha  had  known  when  he  created 
this  little  paradise — that  the  most  wonderful 
thing  about  it  was  the  view.  There  was  a  cer 
tain  rose  arbour  on  the  edge  of  the  terrace 
where  he  would  spend  the  long  hot  days,  looking 
down  as  from  a  box  at  the  play,  upon  the  most 
romantic  scene  in  the  world.  This  was  a  bit  of 
the  Bosphorus,  framed  between  a  round  crenel 
lated  tower  and  a  steep  stairway  of  red  roofs. 
From  the  lane  at  the  bottom  of  the  terrace  wall 
the  hill  fell  ^way  so  suddenly  that  the  won 
derful  swe^p  of  blue  lay  almost  under  the  old 
man's  eyes.  The-  colour  of  it  alone  was  better 
than  breakfast.  But  it  was  constantly  overshot 
by  thip£^0f  passage :  by  great  steamers  hurry 
ing  rip/the  business  of  the  JBlack  Sea;  by  the 
side^wheelers  of  the  Bosphopds,  with  their 
pf^oaigies  of  smoke  and  foa5^xb^sailing  ships 
of  the  strangest  build/^i^might  have  come 
from  Colchis  and  lQ]m^4nd  probably  did;  by 
the  light  Caiques  slipping  merrily  down  the 
Devil's  £H^rent  #r  laboriously  making  their  way 
against  it.  Aria  the  Lost  Souls !  I  do  not  know 
how  they /#gm*je  in  the  Debretts  of  Science, 
those  fleet  s^Swallows ;  but  they  forever 
skimmed  up  and  down  like  clouds  on  the  surface 
of  the  water,  as  if  they  filled  the  darker  part  in 
the  purpose  of  the  play. 

All  these  things  made  a  ceaseless  web  of  cir- 


186  HIS  BEATITUDE 

cumstance  on  the  shining  blue  floor  between 
the  ivied  tower  and  the  stair  of  climbing  roofs, 
and  the  old  man  spent  his  days  in  watching. 
Smiling  alone  in  his  arbour  on  the  hill,  as  if 
everything  were  wonderful  to  him,  one  could  not 
have  told  whether  he  ever  thought  of  his  island, 
and  of  the  people  who  were  not  good,  and  of  the 
pines  that  were  up  and  the  sea  that  was  down. 
One  could  not  even  have  told  which  of  the 
changing  panoramas  of  the  day  he  found  most 
wonderful.  It  might  have  been  the  early  morn 
ing  piece,  when  everything  was  so  limpid  that 
the  water-side  palace  in  the  green  background 
of  Asian  hills  was  cut  of  pearl.  It  might  have 
been  the  late  afternoon  piece,  when  in  the  magic 
of  a  hidden  sun  the  same  palace  burned  with 
opaline  fire.  It  might  have  been  the  night 
piece,  when  there  was  nothing  to  hear  in  the 
silence  but  the  rush  of  the  Devil's  Current 
and  when,  out  of  the  vague  shadow  beyond, 
a  faint  carcanet  of  lights  glimmered — like 
gold  beads  in  the  dusk.  To  him  it  was  all  won 
derful. 

There  did  come  a  day,  however,  when  some 
thing  was  more  wonderful  than  anything  else. 
I  have  spoken  of  a  lane  that  skirted  the  retain 
ing  wall  of  the  garden.  There  street  vendors 
would  pass  on  their  way  from  one  village  to 
another,  prodding  their  donkeys  through  the 


HIS  BEATITUDE  187 

sun  and  crying  picturesque  cries.  Or  sheep 
would  tumble  by,  panting  between  a  small  boy 
and  a  large  dog.  Or  sometimes  people  of  more 
leisurely  sort  would  stroll  past  and  would  raise 
their  eyes  upon  the  hanging  masonry  to  where 
the  white  old  man  sat  in  his  arbour  above  the 
world.  And  he  would  smile  at  them,  so  that 
the  blackest  of  them  could  not  help  smiling 
back.  At  best,  though,  it  was  no  better  than  a 
deserted  by-way.  So  that  when  one  morning 
at  the  end  of  the  summer  a  child  capered  up  in 
her  white  dress  and  white  bonnet,  followed  by  a 
somewhat  breathless  nurse,  it  was  something 
new  to  look  at  and  smile  at.  And  even  before 
the  old  man's  train  of  association  could  rise  to 
consciousness  she  piped : 

"AY !  A'i !  Ai !    When  did  you  come  ?" 

The  old  man  gave  a  start. 

"The  little  Marie!"  he  cried.     "Come!" 

"You  come !"  she  shrilled.  "You  come !  The 
wall  is  too  high !  Jump !" 

She  stood  on  tiptoe  below  him,  with  her  little 
arms  in  the  air. 

The  old  man  rose  as  if  he  intended  to  do  what 
the  child  said.  Then,  after  standing  at  the 
edge  of  the  parapet,  looking  down,  he  walked 
back  and  forth  in  his  trouble. 

"The  little  Marie !  The  little  Marie !"  he  kept 
repeating. 


188  HIS  BEATITUDE 

Just  then  Arakel  appeared  on  the  walk  lead 
ing  from  the  house. 

"Have  you  lost  something,  father?"  he  asked. 
"Can  I  help  you?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  old  man.  "The  little  Marie !" 
And  he  pointed  down  to  the  lane. 

"Come !  Come !"  screamed  the  child  below  the 
wall,  in  her  eagerness. 

Hearing  her,  Arakel  remained  where  he  stood. 

"Who  is  that?"  he  inquired,  with  more  of 
sharpness  than  he  had  ever  shown  before. 

"The  little  Marie,"  answered  the  old  man. 
"She  calls." 

"Ah!"  And  Arakel  remembered  the  island. 
Then  he  said  firmly:  "Come  into  the  house, 
please,  father." 

"But— the  little  Marie !"  faltered  the  old  man. 

"Yes,  I  know,"  smiled  Arakel.     "Come!" 

The  old  man  turned  and  waved  his  hand. 

"I  am  coming !"  he  said.  "Wait,  little  Marie !" 

But  the  little  Marie  waited  in  vain. 

IV 

That  night  there  came  at  the  door  a  great 
ring  which  raised  slow-dying  echoes  in  the 
sleeping  house.  Arakel  sent  back  to  bed  the 
cowering  servant  who  fumbled  at  an  upper  case 
ment,  and  went  down  himself.  Apparently, 
however,  he  was  not  without  expectation  of 


HIS  BEATITUDE  189 

some  such  visit.  For  to  the  man  whom  he  let 
in  he  uttered  merely: 

"Well?" 

"He  is  dead  at  last!"  announced  the  other. 
"I  saw  him  myself  an  hour  ago,  lying  high 
among  his  vestments  and  candles,  like  a  rag  on 
a  rose-bush." 

"It  was  time!"  commented  Arakel.  "When 
will  they  bury  him  ?" 

"Soon,"  replied  Minas.  "It  is  summer,  you 
know." 

"Then  the  appointment  will  be  soon,"  said 
Arakel.  "I  began  to  think  we  had  picked  a  plum 
for  a  peach.  If  this  old " 

A  look  from  Minas  made  him  turn  around. 
There  in  a  doorway  stood  the  old  man,  white 
and  strange  in  his  disordered  array.  He  stared 
confusedly,  blinking  a  little  at  the  candle  held 
by  Arakel. 

"What  are  you  doing  here?"  demanded  that 
personage  with  considerable  sternness. 

"I  heard  the  bell — I  don't  sleep,  you  know — 
I  am  old — I  have  seen  many  things.  They  come 
and  go  before  my  eyes — so."  He  waved  his 

hand  before  his  face.  "I  heard  the  bell I 

thought The  little  Marie " 

Arakel  met  this  silently.  Then  he  went  to 
the  old  man,  took  his  hand,  knelt,  and  said 
slowly,  looking  up  into  his  faded  eyes: 


190  HIS  BEATITUDE 

"No.  It  is  not  the  little  Marie.  It  is  this  gen 
tleman,  Baron  Minas.  He  is  come  to  tell  us  that 
His  Beatitude  the  Patriarch  Hampartsoun  is 
dead,  and  that  you  have  been  chosen  to  take  his 
place." 

"Dead?"  uttered  the  old  man,  looking  about 
uncertainly.  "I Dead  ?" 

"No,  father,"  replied  Arakel,  solemnly  kiss 
ing  the  hand  he  held.  "It  is  you  who  are  now 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople." 

Upon  which  he  rose  and  made  a  sign  to  Minas. 
The  latter  knelt  in  turn  before  the  old  man, 
kissed  his  unwilling  hand,  and  said : 

"Your  Beatitude,  give  me  the  blessing  of 
God." 

The  old  man  blinked  again  in  the  candle-light. 

"I — I  think — I  will  go  to  bed,"  he  stammered. 

At  this  Minas  rose  hastily  and  turned  away. 
Arakel,  however,  immediately  spoke: 

"That  is  right,  your  Beatitude.  You  must 
rest  while  you  can,  for  weary  days  await  us." 

V 

There  was  truth  in  what  Arakel  had  said.  He 
announced  that  they  would  have  now  to  move 
into  town,  and  a  change  came  upon  the  house  on 
the  hill.  The  long  rooms,  bare  as  they  were, 
were  quickly  made  barer  still;  the  halls  were 
made  impassable  by  boxes ;  the  very  garden  was 


HIS  BEATITUDE  191 

despoiled.  The  old  man  saw  his  little  world  dis 
mantled  under  his  eyes — its  peace  shattered  by 
the  fury  of  hammers  and  porters,  its  comfort 
buried  in  the  depths  of  packing-cases.  But  the 
days  were  not  many  before  Arakel  decreed  that 
it  was  time  to  go. 

If  the  old  man  was  bewildered  by  the  fa 
tiguing  strangeness  of  these  events,  he  still 
found  it  possible  to  smile — albeit  somewhat 
wanly.  And  when  the  last  moment  came,  the 
sharpness  of  it  was  turned  by  the  novelty  of 
what  happened.  For  he  was  dressed  in  a  long 
black  robe  with  flowing  sleeves,  upon  his  head 
was  set  the  brimless  pointed  cylinder  of  the 
Armenian  Church,  about  his  neck  was  hung  a 
chain  of  gold,  and  over  his  shrunken  finger  was 
slipped  a  great  ring.  Then  a  sedan  chair  was 
brought,  and  four  sturdy  porters  carried  him 
lightly  away.  He  made  a  wonderful  figure  as 
they  went  down  the  breakneck  cobblestones  to 
the  water — the  stately  old  man  in  his  black  and 
white  and  gold.  And  perhaps  a  certain  childish 
consciousness  of  it,  an  excitement  of  new  im 
pressions,  made  it  easier  for  him  to  leave  the 
garden  and  the  arbour.  At  all  events  it  was  a 
great  thing  to  get  into  the  three-oared  caique 
that  waited  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  to  be  at 
last  a  part  of  the  busy  play  which  he  had 
watched  so  long  from  afar.  The  presence  of  a 


192  HIS  BEATITUDE 

stranger  in  the  boat,  whom  Arakel  called  Levon, 
awed  him  a  little  at  first.  But  he  soon  forgot 
everything  in  the  pleasure  of  slipping  down  the 
Bosphorus  on  mid-current,  with  the  gardened 
hills  on  each  side  runnning  by  like  pictures  in  a 
dream. 

The  dream  came  to  an  end  at  Top  Haneh, 
where  they  swung  inshore.  There  two  victorias 
were  waiting  on  the  quay,  and  a  brilliant  red- 
and-gold  kavass  came  ceremoniously  forward  to 
help  them  from  the  boat.  Perhaps  it  was  be 
cause  he  recognized  the  visitant  of  some  nights 
before  that  the  old  man  made  less  of  having  his 
hand  kissed.  But  he  was  accustomed  now  to 
marvels,  so  that  when  he  was  put  alone  in  the 
first  carriage,  with  Minas  on  the  box,  he  merely 
wore  his  patient  smile  as  of  old.  Then  the  little 
cortege  climbed  the  long  hill  to  the  Grande  Rue 
de  Pera,  and  clattered  splendidly  to  the  door  of 
an  establishment  not  far  from  Galata  Serai. 

The  old  man  and  the  door-boy  had  each  a 
moment  for  admiration.  The  old  man  had 
never  seen  anything  so  magnificent  as  the  em 
blazonments — to  him  perfectly  unintelligible — 
that  covered  the  great  windows:  "Christaki 
Freres,  Orfevrerie  et  Joaillerie,  Fournisseurs  de 
S.M.I,  le  Sultan."  As  for  the  door-boy,  he  was 
accustomed  to  equipages  as  smart,  and  he  had 
a  particular  salaam  for  certain  diaphanous  bun- 


HIS  BEATITUDE  193 

dies  of  beauty  that  came  in  behind  the  Palace 
eunuchs;  but  he  now  decided  that  here  was  a 
new  occasion  for  that  salaam.  So  when  the 
kavass  held  the  carriage  door  and  Arakel  offered 
the  old  man  his  arm,  the  boy  threw  open  his 
domain  with  an  unction  never  to  be  surpassed. 
And  perhaps  his  respect  was  only  deepened  by 
Minas's  cold  refusal,  after  Levon  had  humbly 
followed  the  others,  to  entertain  any  relation 
whatsoever. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  Christaki 
Freres  were  oblivious  to  what  was  going  on  at 
their  door.  Indeed,  one  of  them  who  happened 
at  that  moment  to  be  there,  glided  forward  to 
meet  these  correct  personages,  and  immediately 
conducted  them  into  his  small  private  cabi 
net.  It  had  the  air  of  a  large  jewel  box,  be 
ing  completely  lined  with  red  velvet.  Arakel, 
after  the  old  man  had  been  solemnly  seated 
in  a  big  armchair  and  Levon  had  assumed 
the  post  of  inferiority  near  the  door,  confi 
dentially  approached  Monsieur  Christaki  and 
bestowed  upon  him  a  visiting  card  of  portentous 
size. 

"I  have  the  honour,"  he  said,  "to  accompany 
His  Beatitude  Innocent  I,  the  new  Armenian 
Patriarch." 

Monsieur  Christaki  bowed  so  low  as  almost  to 
sweep  the  carpet  with  his  forelock,  and  insisted 


194  HIS  BEATITUDE 

upon  kissing  the  Patriarchal  hand.  Which  in  a 
Greek  was  indeed  significant  of  an  admirable 
tolerance,  for  he  could  not  be  supposed  to  enter 
tain  the  deepest  respect  for  the  head  of  a  schis 
matic  faith.  Arakel  then  drew  him  apart  and 
laid  before  him  the  object  of  their  call. 

"Before  giving  an  order,"  he  said,  "I  must 
particularly  request  that  you  maintain  perfect 
silence  about  anything  which  we  may  ask  you 
to  do.  I  should  let  you  know  that  we  have 
selected  your  house  simply  because  we  judged 
that  your  discretion  would  be  quite  equal  to 
your  resources,  taste,  and  skill." 

Monsieur  Christaki  intimated  that  he  was 
profoundly  sensible  of  the  honour  conferred 
upon  his  house,  and  that  he  would  rather  suf 
fer  bankruptcy  a  thousand  times  than  give 
occasion  for  shaking  such  confidence.  Arakel 
then  went  on : 

"In  assuming  the  affairs  of  the  Patriarchate 
His  Beatitude  has  made  a  painful  discovery. 
He  has  found  that  the  treasury  has  been  ran 
sacked,  that  certain  objects  are  missing,  and 
that  from  the  most  valuable  of  our  antique 
regalia  the  stones  are" — Arakel  lowered  his 
voice — "gone !  Whether  it  happened  during  the 
lifetime  of  the  late  Patriarch,  or  during  the 
interregnum  ensuing  upon  his  death,  there  has 
been  no  time,  it  may  never  be  possible,  to  deter- 


HIS  BEATITUDE  195 

mine.  But  His  Beatitude  is  to  be  installed 
within  the  month,  and,  naturally,  he  is  gravely 
concerned  for  the  honour  of  the  church  should 
these  losses  become  known."  At  this  they  both 
glanced  toward  the  old  man,  who  was  diffusing 
in  the  small  bright  place  the  benediction  of  his 
smile.  "Accordingly  he  proposes,"  continued 
Arakel,  "to  make  good  the  loss  as  best  he  can 
out  of  his  private  means.  Fortunately  they  are 
— adequate." 

Again  Monsieur  Christaki  glanced  at  the  old 
man,  this  time  in  greater  admiration  than 
before.  4 

"What  noble  self-sacrifice!"  he  exclaimed. 

"Eh,  these  men  of  the  church!"  smiled 
Arakel.  "They,  unlike  ourselves,  think  only  of 
laying  up  treasures  in  heaven!" 

"You  may  count  upon  our  discretion!"  de 
clared  Monsieur  Christaki  feelingly.  "Will  it  be 
— a — goldsmith's  work  that  you  will  require,  or 
jewellery?" 

"Chiefly  jewellery,"  replied  Arakel.  "A  con 
siderable  number  of  unset  gems.  And  the  work, 
you  understand,  will  have  to  be  done  in  His 
Beatitude's  apartments,  under  his  own  super 
vision.  With  despatch  also.  We  shall  wish  to 
begin  to-morrow  morning.  What  we  will  do 
now  will  be  to  select  the  stones  from  which  the 
losses  may  be  repaired.  Of  course  you  will  have 


196  HIS  BEATITUDE 

ample  security  to  cover  their  value  until  the 
work  is  done  and  the  price  paid." 

" Par  exemple!"  burst  out  Monsieur  Christaki. 
"Do  not  mention  security  before  that  face!" 
He  waved  his  hand  toward  the  wonderful  old 
man.  "What  is  it  you  wish  to  see  ?  Diamonds  ? 
Rubies?  Emeralds?  Everything?"  And  in 
the  assenting  smile  of  Arakel  he  approached 
one  of  the  red  velvet  walls,  which  proved  to  con 
ceal  the  door  of  a  safe.  After  opening  this  he 
drew  up  before  His  Beatitude  a  small  table, 
upon  which  were  laid  in  succession  many  trays 
and  cases  of  glittering  things. 

It  was  Arakel  who  made  most  of  the  selec 
tion,  describing  as  he  did  so  the  priceless  relics 
of  Byzantine  and  even  of  earlier  times  which 
had  been  so  ruthlessly  abstracted  or  defaced. 
His  Beatitude,  however,  was  frequently  ap 
pealed  to,  and  was  skilfully  made  to  exercise 
his  choice  among  the  shining  treasure  scattered 
before  him.  The  decision,  it  must  be  said, 
usually  rested  upon  the  more  visible  of  the 
precious  objects  displayed,  and  never  failed  to 
elicit  from  Monsieur  Christaki  the  warmest 
eulogies  upon  His  Beatitude's  taste.  So  at  last 
a  prodigious  number  of  little  boxes  were  set 
aside. 

"Now,"  said  Arakel,  "to  show  how  business 
like  we  can  be  in  the  church !"  But  after  start- 


HIS  BEATITUDE  197 

ing  to  unbutton  his  frock  coat  he  suddenly  put 
his  hand  to  his  hair,  looking  first  at  His  Beati 
tude  and  then  at  the  jeweller.  "I  meant  to  stop 
at  the  bank  first,  but  I  forgot  it.  We  have  just 
come,  you  know,  from  our  audience  at  the 
Sublime  Porte." 

"My  dear  sir!"  cried  the  jeweller,  "do  you 
insult  me?  Here!  Take  your  jewels !  Go!" 

He  was  quite  purple  with  protest. 

Arakel  laughed. 

"Be  careful !"  he  said.  "We  might  take  you 
at  your  word.  But  I  have  it.  I  would  ask  you 
to  send  some  one  with  us,  but  I  am  afraid  His 
Beatitude  is  a  little  fatigued  after  his  hard  day. 
So  if  he  will  excuse  me  a  moment  and  if  you  will 
permit  him  to  rest  here  until  I  return,  I  think  I 
will  step  around  to  the  bank.  Levon,  call  the 
kavass"  Turning  back  to  the  jeweller  he 
added :  'A  priceless  servant !  It  may  save  you 
a  little  uneasiness  if  we  take  them  now." 

Monsieur  Christaki  scorned  to  consider  His 
Beatitude  in  the  light  of  security. 

"The  bank  will  be  there  another  day!"  he 
said.  "If  His  Beatitude  wishes  to  return  home 
at  once " 

"On  the  contrary,"  put  in  Arakel  at  once,  "I 
am  sure  His  Beatitude  would  prefer  a  moment 
of  repose.  If  you  could  let  him  lie  down  here 
until " 


198  HIS  BEATITUDE 

"Certainly!  Certainly!"  cried  the  jeweller. 
"If  he  will  deign  to  endure  our  meagre  accom 
modations  !" 

And  he  pulled  forward  the  billowy  red  velvet 
couch.  Upon  this  His  Beatitude,  divested  of 
the  uncomfortable  head-dress,  was  laid  unmur 
muring.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  was  fatigued 
after  his  hard  day,  and  his  eyes  closed  a  mo 
ment  in  the  contentment  of  relaxation.  The 
four — for  Levon  had  come  back  with  Minas — 
regarded  in  silence  the  extraordinary  picture  he 
made.  Then  Arakel  turned  to  the  jeweller: 

"I  commend  him  to  you,  Monsieur  Christaki. 
You  will  find  him  of  a  tractability !" 

At  this  the  old  man  opened  his  eyes. 

"Son,"  he  asked,  "do  you  go?" 

"Yes,  father,"  answered  Arakel,  "I  go.  But 
sleep  until  I  come.  Good-bye." 

The  old  man  smiled,  a  little  wearily.  They 
looked  at  him  for  another  moment  of  silence. 
Then  they  left  him  alone. 

VI 

His  Beatitude  came  slowly  to  consciousness 
with  the  impression  of  being  under  alien  eyes. 
He  had  been  dreaming,  and  the  little  red  room 
was  as  strange  to  him  as  the  countenance  of 
Monsieur  Christaki. 

"I  beg  His  Beatitude's  pardon  if  I  have  dis- 


HIS  BEATITUDE  199 

turbed  him !"  uttered  that  worthy  with  an  anx 
ious  smile.  "The  coachman  wishes  to  know 

He  is  still  waiting The  other  coachman 

has  brought  a  message  which  I  do  not  quite 

understand May  I  accompany  you  to  the 

Patriarchate?" 

"The  Patriarchate?"  asked  the  old  man 
vaguely. 

"Yes.  The  coachman  doesn't  seem  to  be  sure 
where  he  was  to  take  you.  You  have  taken  pos 
session,  have  you  not?" 

The  old  man  held  a  brief  inner  examination. 
Then  he  announced  judicially: 

"Son,  I  do  not  know." 

"You  don't  know !"  cried  the  uneasy  jeweller. 
"Why,  where  did  you  start  from  this  after 
noon?" 

His  Beatitude  considered  a  moment. 

"With  Baron  Arakel,"  he  replied,  and  he 
looked  around  him  as  if  to  discover  the  where 
abouts  of  that  personage. 

"No,  he  is  not  here !"  exclaimed  the  jeweller. 
"He  said  he  would  be  back  in  twenty  minutes, 
and  he  has  been  gone  three  hours.  But  where 
did  he  bring  you  from  this  afternoon  ?" 

Again  His  Beatitude  considered. 

"It  was  up,"  he  answered,  lifting  his  hand. 
"Up  on  the  hill.  Below  was  water.  And  I  saw 
the  little  Marie !"  he  added  triumphantly. 


200  HIS  BEATITUDE 

"The  little  Marie!"  burst  out  the  distracted 
jeweller.  "I  thought  it  was  the  Grand  Vizier. 
Excuse  me  a  moment  while  I  speak  to  the  coach 
man." 

Bowing  himself  out  he  hurried  to  the  door. 
It  was  as  he  said.  The  other  coachman  had 
returned  and  seemed  to  be  having  some  discus 
sion  with  the  one  who  had  waited. 

"Look  at  me!"  called  the  jeweller  imperi 
ously. 

Both  men  turned. 

"Where  did  you  bring  these  effendis  from 
this  afternoon  ?" 

"From  Top  Haneh,  Effendim"  they  answered 
in  concert. 

"Top  Haneh,  eh?    And  what  street?" 

"From  the  quay,"  they  chorused  again.  "They 
came  in  a  boat." 

"In  a  boat!"  The  jeweller's  heart  became  as 
lead  within  him.  But  he  looked  at  the  new 
comer.  "And  where  did  you  drive  the  three 
young  ones  from  here?  The  two  and  the 
kavass  ?" 

"First  they  said  the  Ottoman  Bank,"  replied 
the  man,  "but  then  they  changed  their  minds 
and  told  me  to  drive  down  to  the  Galata 
Quay " 

"The  quay!"  cried  Monsieur  Christaki,  turn 
ing  pale. 


HIS  BEATITUDE  201 

"Yes.  They  said  they  had  to  catch  a  steamer." 

"A  steamer!"  almost  shrieked  the  jeweller. 
"What  steamer?" 

The  man  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Who  knows?  There  are  a  thousand.  They 
went  out  in  a  sandal.  They  told  the  boatman  to 
row  for  his  soul.  But  they  threw  me  back  a 
lira!"  Rising  a  moment  he  reached  into  his 
pocket  and  held  up  the  glittering  gold  piece  with 
a  grin.  "I  just  happened  to  pass,  and  Mahmoud 
here  told  me  that  he  hasn't  got  his  yet." 

"A-a-ah!"  uttered  the  jeweller  slowly,  be 
tween  his  teeth.  Then  he  wheeled  in  a  flash.  "If 
I  don't  tear  out  by  the  root  every  hair  of  that 
goat's  beard  of  his !"  he  cried.  And  he  ran  back 
like  a  tiger  into  the  little  red  cabinet  where  lay 
His  Beatitude. 


THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS 

The  secret  of  the  stars, — gravitation. 
The  secret  of  the  earth, — layers  of  rock. 
The  secret  of  the  soil, — to  receive  seed. 
The  secret  of  the  seed, — the  germ. 
The  secret  of  man, — the  sower. 
The  secret  of  woman, — the  soil. 

My  secret :  Under  a  mound  that  you  shall  never  find. 
— Edgar  Lee  Masters:  SPOON  RIVER  ANTHOLOGY. 


SENTIMENTAL,  sentimental,  my  dear  lady! 
It's  grossly  sentimental,  and  it  isn't  much 
of  a  story  anyhow.    Mine  never  are,  you 
know.    They're  only  notes  for  other  people  to 
make  stories  out  of.     And  you  mustn't  think 
that  it  has  anything  to  do,  except  by  accident, 
with  the  name  of  the  place. 

The  place  was  named  for  the  first  Turkish 
skirmishers  who  fell  in  the  conquest.  It's  quite 
a  place,  though,  isn't  it?  Of  course  there  are 
plenty  of  higher  hilltops,  looking  down  on 
broader  lands  and  bluer  seas.  But  there  are 
not  many  so  picturesquely  furnished  with 
ragged  cypresses  and  grey  old  turbaned  stones, 
from  which  you  may  behold  two  continents 
202 


THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS          203 

staring  at  each  other  so  melodramatically.  And 
I,  for  one,  am  acquainted  with  no  hilltop  that 
gives  out  quite  so  intricate  a  sense  of  life — of 
all  the  different  kinds  of  people  that  have  lived 
in  the  world,  of  all  the  fatalities  and  transfor 
mations  that  have  befallen  them,  of  the  strange 
singleness  in  their  destinies,  and  the  strange 
impossibility  that  they  should  ever  quite  die 
out.  Up  there  is  Giant's  Mountain,  where 
Jason  had  such  a  bad  time  with  King  Amycus, 
and  which  the  Turks  have  turned  into  the  grave 
of  no  less  a  personage  than  Joshua  the  son  of 
Nun.  Down  there  are  the  hills  where  Hannibal 
was  buried.  I  wonder  whether  it  would  be  any 
thing  to  him  to  know  that  the  castle  under  our 
feet  was  built  by  a  terrible  young  man  who  bat 
tered  down  what  was  left  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
A  Greek  temple  of  Hermes  stood  there  once. 

Then  that  bare  brown  country  behind  us 

They  talk  about  the  Roman  campagna.  I  re 
member  two  young  men  in  a  compartment  talk 
ing  about  it  one  afternoon  as  we  rumbled  out  of 
the  valley  of  Umbria.  "E  magnified,  ma  me- 
lanconica"  observed  the  one.  "Also  the  sea 
renders  melancholy,"  declared  the  other :  "It  is 
the  infinite,  the  unattainable."  Yet  I  don't 
know  why  I  should  laugh  at  them  for  being  so 
much  more  eloquent  than  two  young  Americans 
would  have  been — except  that  the  Roman  cam- 


204         THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS 

pagna,  after  this  one,  always  seems  to  me  so 
small  and  mild,  a  sort  of  happy  hunting  ground 
for  painters  and  paper-chasers.  It  was  meant 
to  put  in  a  gold  frame  and  hang  in  a  drawing- 
room.  You  can't  put  this  campagna  into  a  gold 
frame.  It's  too  big  and  too  melancholy.  Too 
many  horsemen  have  trampled  its  fields,  cut 
down  its  woods,  burned  its  houses,  left  it  each 
more  desolate  than  the  last.  But  all  the  horse 
men  of  Europe  and  Asia  never  quite  trampled 
out  some  stubborn  virtue  that  persists  in  it 
still,  that  proves  itself  in  chosen  lights,  at 
changes  of  the  year.  And  there  are  lost  slopes 
and  hollows  where,  among  remnants  of  races 
and  struggling  patches  of  green,  the  old  drama 
of  the  earth  goes  obscurely  on.  There !  Didn't 
I  tell  you  I  was  going  to  be  sentimental  ? 

The  day  I  discovered  the  place,  though,  I 
didn't  trouble  myself  much  about  remnants  of 
races  or  melancholy  campagnas.  I  had  ridden 
up  here  on  one  of  those  mornings  we  get  oftener 
with  a  south  wind  than  otherwise — when  the 
sky  and  the  Bosphorus  have  the  light  in  them 
they  ought  to  have  if  the  Black  Sea  were  not  at 
our  backs.  You  know  that  clear,  soft,  coloured, 
swimming  light.  I  can't  describe  it,  but  it's  the 
light  in  which  Greece  and  Italy  grew  up. 
There's  something  irresistibly  pagan  about  it. 
It  always  makes  me  forget  that  anybody  but 


THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS         205 

Jason  and  Byzas  and  Xenophon  ever  had  any 
business  here.  So  when  I  started  to  look  for  a 
road  into  that  ravine  behind  us,  and  stumbled 
on  those  white  stones  you  see  at  the  edge  of  the 
slope,  beyond  the  threshing  floor,  I  had  a 
momentary  impression  of — what  shall  I  say 
without  being  sentimental  or  callous?  Those 
stones  are  the  Armenian  cemetery  of  the  village 
down  by  the  castle,  and  they  made  an  incon 
gruous  note  in  a  pagan  morning.  The  Armen 
ians  have  always  been  for  me  the  least  sympa 
thetic  of  the  races  here.  They  have  neither  the 
history  nor  the  physical  appearance  that  attract 
one  to  some  disinherited  peoples,  and  their  cen 
turies  of  servitude  have  left  not  the  happiest 
traces  in  their  character.  Then  those  neglected 
graves  scattered  on  that  burnt  slope,  unguarded 
by  wall  or  rail,  unshaded  by  so  much  as  a  scrub 
oak,  cut  off  from  sight  of  house  or  sea — they 
were  like  a  sudden  chill  in  that  lighted  summer 
sunshine. 

However,  I  left  it  behind  me,  leading  my 
horse  down  a  sort  of  rocky  trough  that  was  evi 
dently  a  watercourse  in  time  of  rain.  The  high 
banks  on  either  side  were  overgrown  with  scrub 
oak  and  bay  and  those  ragged  blue  flowers  with 
jointed  stems,  whose  name  I  never  remember. 
Chicory,  is  it?  The  trail  dropped  into  a  wider 
one  at  the  bottom  of  the  ravine,  where  there  was 


206         THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS 

a  trickle  of  water.  There  were  also  blackberry 
bushes  in  a  tangle  of  honeysuckle  and  wild  rose, 
and  trees  of  some  size.  It  was  a  pleasant  place 
on  a  warm  June  morning.  But  I  found  a  pleas- 
anter  one  in  the  hollow  just  beyond,  where  three 
ravines  met.  A  big  oak  tree  stood  there,  shad 
ing  one  bank  of  the  brook.  The  other  bank  was 
the  steep  side  of  a  hill,  out  of  which  from 
a  small  brick  archway  bubbled  a  spring. 
Branches  of  bay  and  linden  hung  above  it,  ferns 
grew  in  their  shadow,  sage-roses  dotted  the 
green.  You  would  never  have  expected  so  de 
lightful  a  spot  in  so  burnt  up  a  country.  I  tied 
my  horse  and  sat  down  under  the  big  oak.  This 
time  there  was  nothing  to  jar  on  my  mood. 
There  wasn't  a  house  to  see  or  a  voice  to  hear. 
There  were  only  the  trickle  of  the  water,  the 
talk  of  the  birds,  the  movement  of  the  leaves, 
the  shimmer  of  the  steep  slopes  in  the  pagan 
light.  On  top  of  one  of  them  a  cypress  tapered 
darkly  into  the  luminous  sky. 

As  I  sat  there,  the  only  piece  of  incongruity, 
smoking  cigarettes  and  taking  in  with  the 
sweetness  and  coolness  of  the  place  the  sense  of 
that  old  Greek  earth,  I  became  aware  of  some 
one  looking  at  me  through  the  leaves  of  the 
opposite  bank.  It  might  have  been  a  faun, 
tutelary  to  the  pool  or  in  search  of  its  guardian 
nymph.  At  all  events,  he  was  a  remarkably 


THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS         207 

good-looking  faun.  He  reminded  me  of  a  cer 
tain  little  Renaissance  bronze,  with  low-growing 
curls  and  a  pleasure-loving  nose,  that  beats  his 
cymbals  in  the  Bargello  at  Florence.  If  it  were 
a  nymph  he  was  looking  for,  I  knew  she  was  as 
good  as  lost,  because  his  eyes  were  the  most 
faun-like  part  of  him — of  a  brown  in  which 
warmth  and  wildness  were  most  perilously 
mixed.  For  myself,  I  was  more  occupied  with 
his  ears,  trying  to  make  out  in  the  shadow  if 
they  were  properly  pointed.  He  obligingly  as 
sisted  my  investigations  by  jumping  down  the 
bank  and  asking  me  in  Greek  if  I  had  a  cigar 
ette.  That  might  have  broken  the  spell,  for 
who  ever  heard  of  fauns  smoking — to  whatever 
other  forms  of  enjoyment  they  may  have  been 
addicted  ?  Moreover,  sculpture  does  not  present 
them  in  ragged  blue  shirts  and  nondescript 
trousers  tied  in  at  the  waist  by  an  apology  for  a 
white  girdle.  But  the  faun  had  so  engaging  a 
smile,  he  displayed  such  white  teeth,  his  car 
riage  was  at  once  so  lithe  and  so  proud,  that  I 
could  only  find  him  more  faun-like  than  ever. 
We  accordingly  entered  into  relations  of  some 
shakiness,  my  Greek  being  none  too  strong. 
The  faun  turned  out  to  know  Turkish,  though, 
and  much  better  than  Greeks  usually  do.  He 
told  me  that  he  worked  in  the  strawberry  fields 
near  by.  He  also  informed  me  that  the  spring 


208         THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS 

in  the  archway  was  an  ayazma,  one  of  the  holy 
wells  in  which  the  Levant  abounds,  dedicated  to 
A'i  Yanni — St.  John.  I  asked  him  if  he  were 
A'i  Yanni  in  person.  He,  smiling,  replied  that 
as  a  matter  of  fact  his  name  was  Yanni,  but 
that  for  the  rest  he  was  no  saint.  I  fear  he 
spoke  the  truth.  Yet  how  should  he  have  been  ? 
He  said  that  on  the  day  of  the  saint,  later  in  the 
summer,  people  came  from  everywhere  about 
with  candles,  with  music,  with  beer,  and  made 
merry  in  the  hollow.  While  there  were  elements 
of  incongruity  in  this  picture,  it  only  estab 
lished  me  in  my  view  of  the  faun.  The  custom 
he  described  was  older,  after  all,  than  Chris 
tianity.  I  had  discovered  a  Sacred  Fount  and 
its  tutelary  divinity. 

II 

Well,  we  chatted  a  while,  and  then  I  rode 
away.  But  I  went  back.  I  took  a  great  fancy 
to  that  Sacred  Fount  and  to  that  faun.  There 
was  a  pleasant  magic  about  them — their  having 
survived,  in  their  secret  hollow,  so  many 
changes  of  those  barren  downs.  The  fountain 
must  surely  be  of  perpetual  youth.  It  happened 
that  I  always  returned  to  it  on  the  same  sort  of 
day.  When  I  got  up  in  the  morning  and  saw  a 
Mediterranean  light,  I  thought  of  the  Sacred 
Fount.  I  doubted  whether  I  should  find  any- 


THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS         209 

thing  there  on  an  ordinary  day.  As  it  was,  I 
rarely  failed  to  find  the  faun — perhaps  through 
his  willingness  to  receive  human  offerings  of 
tobacco.  There  were  times,  however,  when  I 
wondered  what  he  was  up  to.  He  seemed  to 
spend  his  days  in  an  elegant  leisure,  unperturbed 
by  the  passing  of  the  season  and  the  work  of 
the  fields  in  which  he  had  claimed  a  share.  I 
asked  myself  if  some  hamadryad  were  hidden 
among  the  trees,  who  fled  at  my  approach  and 
reappeared  when  I  was  gone. 

It  was  finally  given  me  to  have  light  on  the 
hamadryad.  Yanni  inquired  of  me  one  day  if  I 
could  read.  Upon  my  confessing  that  I  could, 
he  produced  a  scrap  of  crumpled  paper,  which 
he  handed  to  me  with  some  solemnity.  I  could 
scarcely  make  out  the  scrawling  on  it.  I  finally 
announced  that  the  words  were  in  Greek,  and 
therefore  to  me  unintelligible.  "But  if  you  can 

read "     objected     Yanni.       He     evidently 

doubted  my  possession  of  the  accomplishment  I 
had  boasted.  I  presume  he  thought  that  the 
language  of  writing  was  one,  whatever  the  dia 
lect  written.  I  only  wish  it  were  so.  However, 
we  eventually  succeeded  in  picking  out  between 
us  the  contents  of  the  letter — for  such  it  was — 
I  pronouncing  such  vocables  as  I  seemed  to  see 
on  the  paper,  and  Yanni  correcting  me  out  of 
his  superior  knowledge. 


210         THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS 

The  letter,  I  concluded,  was  from  a  hama 
dryad,  and  one  in  distress.  "My  heart,"  it  ran, 
"come  once  more.  No  one  will  hurt  you.  I  am 
in  Koum  Kapou."  I  didn't  quite  like  that  of  her 
— being  in  Koum  Kapou.  Koum  Kapou  is  a 
fishy  quarter  on  the  south  side  of  Stamboul, 
where  the  Armenian  Patriarch  lives.  What 
should  a  hamadryad  be  doing  there  of  all 
places  ?  I  looked  at  the  faun,  by  way  of  finding 
out.  As  for  him,  he  exclaimed  with  a  sigh : 

"These  are  the  things  a  man  must  suffer!" 

I  was  inclined  to  smile.  Yanni  looked  as  if  he 
might,  at  a  stretch,  be  nineteen. 

"Well,  are  you  going?"  I  threw  out. 

I  remember  he  glanced  behind  him,  in  the 
quick  way  he  had,  before  he  spoke : 

"It  may  be  a  trick." 

"At  least  go  and  see,"  I  said.  "Let  the  fault 
be  on  the  other  side,  if  there  is  one."  I  always 
abound  in  specious  sentiments  at  moments  of 
indecision. 

He  considered  it  doubtfully.  "Vallah!  I  don't 
know  what  to  do,"  he  finally  uttered. 

"But  what  if  she  should  really  need  you?"  I 
asked.  "What  if  she  should  be  ill  ?" 

The  hamadryad  would  have  forgiven  him 
anything  in  the  world  if  she  had  seen  his  eyes 
when  he  answered  me : 

"She  is.    And  the  fault  is  mine." 


THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS         211 

He  took  his  tobacco-box  out  of  his  girdle  and 
began  rolling  a  cigarette.  There  was  an  ex 
treme  pliability  about  his  crouching  figure  that 
gave  him  more  than  ever  the  look  of  a  wood 
creature,  ready  to  spring  away  at  a  sound.  He 
might  have  been  surprised  to  know  that  the 
stare  I  bestowed  upon  him  was  not  without 
envy.  He  was  evidently  one  of  the  favoured 
people  to  whom  things  happen.  I  have  never 
made  up  my  mind  just  how  they  differ  from  the 
rest  of  us.  It  isn't  altogether  a  matter  of  looks. 
There  are  pimply  ladies,  there  are  hatchet-faced 
young  gentlemen,  who  only  have  to  put  their 
nose  out  of  the  door  to  enter  into  a  crucial  rela 
tion  with  the  first  person  they  see.  They  are 
the  people  to  whom  the  world  belongs.  They 
are  on  the  inside,  so  to  speak.  We  others  are  on 
the  outside.  We  sit  by  and  watch  the  hares 
that  they  have  started.  I,  for  example,  might 
go  to  and  fro  a  hundred  years  without  entering 
into  a  crucial  relation  with  a  cat.  All  I  know  is 
that  there  is  a  wireless  telegraphy  going  on 
about  me,  of  which  I  haven't  the  code.  Perhaps 
that  is  why  I  have  such  an  inordinate  curiosity 
about  people's  stories.  They  are  never  very  ex 
traordinary,  to  be  sure.  When  you  have  heard 
one — or  when  you  have  heard  three :  how  many 
possible  stories  did  that  Frenchman  say  there 
are? — you  have  heard  the  rest.  But — I  don't 


212         THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS 

know — there  are  always  variations,  of  charac 
ter,  of  circumstance,  that  make  each  a  little 
different  from  the  last. 

If  I  hoped  to  hear  the  story  of  my  faun,  how 
ever,  I  was  disappointed.  Just  at  the  wrong 
moment  there  appeared  an  old  man  who  evi 
dently  desired  speech  of  him.  Without  being 
exactly  a  humpback,  the  old  man's  shoulders 
looked  as  if  he  had  never  tried  to  stand  up 
straight  till  that  moment ;  and  he  had  a  cataract 
in  one  eye.  He  also  carried  a  bundle  done  up  in 
a  painted  handkerchief.  Although  he  saluted 
me  with  no  lack  of  respect,  I  felt  myself  de  trop. 
I  therefore  took  my  leave. 

Ill 

I  meant  to  go  back  the  next  day.  I  was  rather 
curious  about  my  mysterious  young  man,  with 
his  old  gentlemen  and  young  ladies.  But  the 
sun  wasn't  right,  and  affairs  kept  me  busy.  In 
fact,  ten  days  or  a  fortnight  passed  before  I  had 
another  pagan  day.  What  a  day  it  was,  too! 
The  crickets  had  come  by  that  time.  Do  you 
like  crickets  ?  Some  people  don't,  but  they  make 
me  rather  dotty.  All  the  drowsiness  and  an 
tiquity  of  summer  is  in  them.  They  were  like 
the  sound  of  the  clear  warm  light  as  I  rode  over 
the  hills.  But  I  found  no  faun.  I  concluded 
that  he  must  have  gone  to  Koum  Kapou.  So, 


THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS          213 

after  drinking  from  the  Sacred  Fount  and  leav 
ing  a  votive  box  of  tobacco  beside  it,  I  rode  on 
up  here. 

I  came  by  another  way  I  had  discovered, 
a  paved  lane  arched  with  bay-trees,  through 
which  you  look  down  into  the  valley  below.  It 
comes  out  there,  to  the  right  of  the  Armenian 
cemetery.  As  I  got  near  the  top  I  heard  a 
curious  sound.  It  was  a  kind  of  chanting  that 
rose  and  fell  in  the  distance.  When  I  was  clear 
of  the  trees  I  made  out  a  procession  winding  up 
the  hill  from  the  village.  My  first  impression 
of  moving  white  and  colour  made  me  think  of 
the  faun.  Should  he  not  be  watching  among 
the  trees  while  youths  and  maidens,  chanting, 
white-robed  and  chaplet-crowned,  led  some  sac 
rificial  creature  through  the  pagan  morning  to 
some  sacred  height?  But  I  soon  saw  how  dif 
ferent  a  procession  was  this.  A  boy,  in  a  sort 
of  buff  surplice  with  a  red  cape,  led  it,  carrying 
a  tall  silver  cross.  Two  other  boys,  a  little  be 
hind  him,  carried  what  might  have  been  silver 
pyxes  at  the  end  of  long  staves.  They  were  fol 
lowed  by  others  still  in  white,  singing,  with 
censers  and  lighted  candles.  You  don't  know 
how  strange  that  candle-light  looked  on  such  a 
morning.  Then,  among  a  crowd  of  bearers  in 
different  coloured  capes,  I  saw  a  bier  covered 
with  a  red  pall.  The  bier  was  partly  covered, 


214         THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS 

that  is.  You  know  how  they  do.  At  one  end 
was  an  uncovered  pillow,  and  on  the  pillow  an 
uncovered  head  jarred  with  the  steps  of  the 
bearers,  while  two  dreadfully  white  hands  were 
clasped  outside  of  the  red  pall.  The  head  was 
that  of  a  young  girl,  with  a  great  mass  of  black 
hair,  who  should  never  have  been  carried  up  the 
hill  like  that,  while  crickets  sang  under  such  a 
summer  sun.  I  wondered  what  could  have 
brought  her  to  the  Place  of  Martyrs.  After  her 
came  priests  in  black  robes  and  white  em 
broidered  chasubles.  I  recognized  them  for 
Armenians  by  their  brimless  pointed  hats  of 
black  or  purple.  One  of  them,  with  a  long  white 
beard,  wore  a  black  veil  over  his  hat  and  carried 
a  silver  crosier.  They  were  all  chanting  and 
swinging  censers. 

They  came  on  up  the  hill,  chanting,  chanting, 
passed  me  so  close  that  my  horse  jumped,  and 
climbed  the  last  bit  of  slope  to  the  Armenian 
cemetery.  There  I  saw  them  stop,  put  down 
the  bier,  take  off  the  pall,  lift  the  body,  and  drop 
it  out  of  sight — like  that,  without  any  covering. 
It  was  horrible — that  young  girl,  on  such  a 

summer  morning I  turned  away  and  came 

up  here. 

It  was  of  the  nature  of  the  faun  that  I  sud 
denly  found  him  beside  me.  By  that  time  the 
people  were  gone.  He  squatted  on  his  heels,  as 


THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS         215 

usual,  and  as  usual  I  handed  him  my  cigarette- 
case.  But  I  realized  that  my  paganism  had 
somewhat  cooled. 

"Well,  did  you  go  to  Koum  Kapou?"  I  asked, 
glad  to  escape  from  the  oppression  of  what  I 
had  just  seen. 

"No,"  he  replied  gravely,  after  a  pause.  "How 
did  I  know  what  they  would  do  ?" 

"Why,  what  could  they  have  done  ?" 

"They  might  have  made  me  an  Armenian," 
answered  Yanni. 

The  word,  and  the  hint  of  a  smile  drawn  by 
my  look,  made  me  conscious  of  something  that 
had  happened  inside  of  me.  I  remembered  the 
first  time  I  came  here,  how  those  gravestones 
and  their  Armenian  letters  jarred  on  my  pagan 
morning.  This  time I  don't  know ;  I  pre 
sume  it  had  never  occurred  to  me  before  that 
one  may  have  inglorious  ancestors  and  a  bul 
bous  nose,  and  yet  be  subject  to  this  queer 
adventure  of  life.  The  pitifulness  of  what  I 
had  seen  somehow  included  the  rest  of  those 
abandoned  graves.  These  old  boys  around  us 
here  had  as  much  to  compensate  them  as  any 
body  could  for  being  bundled  out  of  a  warm  and 
coloured  world.  They  belonged  to  a  great  race. 
They  died  in  a  conquering  cause.  They  laid 
up  for  themselves  crowns  of  martyrdom  for 
falling  in  holy  war  against  the  infidel.  And 


216          THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS 

they  lie  here  now  in  their  promised  land,  in 
sight  of  the  continent  that  gave  them  birth,  on 
one  of  the  most  romantic  hilltops  in  Europe. 
But  those  other  Asiatics,  to  whom  no  land  ever 
was  or  ever  may  be  promised,  lie  there  in  the 
face  of  that  desolate  campagna,  in  soil  un 
friendly  whether  Greek,  Roman,  or  Turkish,  in 
all  the  ignominy  and  defeat  of  death.  They 
made  me  think  of  a  phrase  in  the  Koran :  "He 
who  dies  in  a  strange  land  dies  the  death  of  the 
martyrs." 

"How  could  they  make  you  an  Armenian?" 
I  asked  at  last.  I  suppose  he  meant  that  they 
wanted  him  to  change  the  Orthodox  for  the 
Gregorian  creed. 

"They  were  very  angry.  They  went  to  my 
father,  they  took  me  to  the  Armenian  priest,  I 
don't  know  what  they  didn't  do.  That  was  why 
I  went  to  A'i  Yanni.  I  have  been  there  four 
months,  hiding.  My  father  brought  me  food 
sometimes — that  old  man  you  saw.  I  have 
never  been  away  except  at  night.  They  might 
have  killed  me." 

"But  why?"  I  persisted,  beginning  to  be  in 
terested  in  my  faun  again. 

"Because — because  of  that  girl  you  saw  them 
take  there,"  he  replied,  pointing  to  the  Ar 
menian  cemetery.  "I  was  apprentice  to  her 
father.  He  is  a  shoemaker  in  the  village.  The 


THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS         217 

shop  is  downstairs,  upstairs  they  live.  I  lived 
there  too.  And  she — she  became  my  friend." 
He  drew  meditatively  at  his  cigarette.  I  could 
see  that  it  would  be  easy  for  him  and  that 
young  girl  with  the  black  hair  to  become 
"friends,"  and  why  they  had  left  her  at  the 
Place  of  Martyrs.  "How  does  one  know  that 
things  will  end  like  that?"  he  went  on.  "I 
would  have  married  her,  but  they  said  I  must 
first  become  an  Armenian." 

I  must  have  stared  ridiculously  at  that  young 
man  to  whom  things  happened.  I  realized  that 
he  was  telling  me  a  story.  It  was  the  oldest  and 
commonest  of  stories;  and  yet,  in  this  place, 
among  these  people,  it  had  a  colour  of  its  own. 
One  of  those  chaps  who  scribble  might  have 
made  quite  a  thing  out  of  it,  with  all  the  frills 
and  stuff  they  put  in.  He  didn't  put  in  enough 
— to  suit  me.  I  had  to  put  them  in  for  myself, 
while  he  sat  smoking  and  staring  down  into  the 
village  where  he  hadn't  dared  to  go  for  four 
months.  There  was  such  a  look  in  his  eyes,  too. 
It  made  me  forgive  him  for  being  so  abomin 
able,  see  him  only  as  a  piece  of  life,  of  blindness 
and  fatality.  It  even  made  me  feel  a  queer 
respect  for  him,  a  cobbler's  apprentice  quel- 
conque — the  respect  of  the  spectator  for  the 
actor. 

Then  I  saw  the  shadow  fade  out  of  his  look. 
He  snapped  away  the  stub  of  his  cigarette, 


218         THE  PLACE  OF  MARTYRS 

stood  up,  and  stretched  himself  like  an  animal 
let  out  of  a  cage.    He  was  all  faun  again  as  he 
smiled  down  at  me,  with  his  hands  behind  his 
head — young,  wild,  handsome,  irresponsible. 
"That  also  has  passed !"  he  exclaimed. 


UNDER  THE  ARCH 

It  was  ridiculous,  and  yet — Well,  it  is  a  rat  trap,  and 
you,  madam  and  sir  and  all  of  us,  are  in  it. 

— 0.  Henry:  THE  VOICE  OF  THE  CITY. 


EVERY  now  and  then  a  big  warm  drop 
would  splash  down  on  me  from  the  dome. 
It  was  right  over  me,  the  dome,  irregu 
larly  pierced  by  translucent  bull's-eyes.  From 
them  a  greenish  light  wavered  through  the  haze 
of  steam.  It  gave  one  a  curious  sensation  of 
being  out  of  the  world,  under  the  sea.  A  little 
imagination  made  mermen  out  of  the  figures 
about  me,  with  their  nude  torsos  tailing  off 
into  striped  red  towels.  It  amused  me  to  won 
der  what  my  Puritan  forbears  would  have  made 
of  such  an  underworld,  and  whether  I  owed  it 
to  their  hard  New  England  winters  that  the 
heat  of  the  marble  crept  so  deliciously  through 
my  nomad  skin.  That  reminded  me  of  some 
one  in  the  Thousand  Nights  and  One  Night — 
not  as  we  read  them  in  our  school  days,  but  as 
Dr.  J.  C.  Mardrus  has  translated  them  in  six 
teen  big  French  volumes — who  made  a  poem  of 

219 


220  UNDER  THE  ARCH 

that  world,  and  keeps  breaking  out  into  an 
ecstatic  "0  hammam!"  It  struck  me  that  a 
Debussy  could  find  an  Apres  Midi  d'un  Bai- 
gneur  in  the  hollow  echoes,  just  this  side  of 
music,  that  rippled  and  rumbled  through  the 
place — -the  different-keyed  splashings  of  water, 
the  ring  of  metal  bath  bowls,  the  duller  click- 
clack  of  wooden  clogs  on  marble,  the  rise  and 
fall  of  voices,  punctuated  occasionally  by  the 
muffled  slam  of  a  door. 

In  an  alcove  near  me  a  young  man  was  sing 
ing.  Every  other  phrase  of  his  song  began  with 
"Aman!  Aman!" — which  you  must  understand 
as  meaning  something  between  Alas !  and  Have 
mercy !  I  could  see  no  more  of  him  than  a  dark 
poll  and  a  muscular  brown  shoulder,  by  reason 
of  a  panel  of  Byzantine  sculpture  that  closed 
the  end  of  the  low  marble  dais  on  which  he  sat. 
The  floor  of  his  alcove,  too,  was  inlaid  with 
coloured  marble  in  a  Byzantine  pattern  of  in 
terlaced  garlands.  Who  knew  out  of  what 
Greek  church  they  came,  long  ago?  And 
there  a  Turkish  peasant — or  so  it  pleased  me 
to  fancy  him — sat  singing  one  of  those  end 
less  old  unhappy  love  songs  of  Asia,  know 
ing  no  more  of  Byzantines  and  their  carvings 
than  if  his  fathers  had  never  knocked  over 
a  Byzantine  empire.  "Aman!  Aman!"  he 
sang,  sending  the  strangest  reverberations 


UNDER  THE  ARCH  221 

quivering  up  into  the  misty  green  twilight  of 
the  dome. 

Presently  another  young  man,  wrapped  from 
his  waist  to  his  heels  in  the  red  towel  of  rigour, 
click-clacked  across  the  marble  floor,  stepped 
out  of  his  clogs  on  to  the  central  platform  where 
I  lay,  knelt  beside  me,  and  began  to  knead  my 
wrists.  He  was  rather  a  striking-looking  young 
man,  not  so  much  because  he  was  tall  and  well 
made,  as  because  of  two  strangely  sombre  eyes 
he  had,  under  heavy  black  brows  and  a  low- 
growing  thatch  of  black  hair.  There  was  some 
thing  vaguely  familiar  about  him,  withal.  And 
I  noticed  that  his  left  arm  was  tattooed.  But 
what  I  chiefly  noticed  was  what  he  began  to  do 
to  me.  Turkish  massage  is  very  much  like  any 
other  massage,  except  that  it  goes  into  refine 
ments  of  torture  which  I  have  not  suffered  in 
Christendom.  Starting  as  mildly  as  you  please, 
it  culminates  by  removing  your  vertebrae,  one 
after  another,  turning  them  inside  out,  and 
replacing  them  with  more  or  less  care.  When 
it  is  done  with  more  care  you  feel  as  if  you  had 
just  broken  the  bank  at  Monte  Carlo  and  were 
about  to  take  Cleopatra  to  wife.  When  it  is 
done  with  less  care  you  feel  as  if  you  had 
broken  your  neck — and  sometimes  you  have. 
This  particular  bathman  showed  that  he  hap 
pened  to  be  an  expert  in  his  art.  So  I  let  him 


222  UNDER  THE  ARCH 

do  his  worst,  while  I  closed  my  eyes  and  drifted 
into  a  state  of  beatific  semi-consciousness. 

When  this  part  of  the  complicated  rite  of  the 
bath  was  at  an  end,  my  tellak  clapped  his  hands 
as  a  signal  thereof,  and  led  the  way  into  one  of 
the  alcoves.  There,  sitting  me  down  on  the  hot 
marble  step  that  ran  around  the  three  sides  and 
squatting  on  his  heels  in  front  of  me,  he  pro 
ceeded  to  put  me  through  the  humiliation  of 
peeling.  Heavens !  Such  rolls  of  grime  as  come 
off  one  under  a  bathman's  horsehair  mitten! 
And  we  imagine  that  we  are  a  cleanly  race! 
The  Turks  do  not  share  our  good  opinion  of  our 
selves  in  that  regard.  They  never  wash  so 
much  as  their  own  little  finger  in  standing 
water.  Consequently  in  a  real  Turkish  bath 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  tub  or  a  pool.  There 
are  merely  small  marble  basins  set  about  the 
walls.  Out  of  the  one  beside  which  I  sat  my 
bathman  dipped  a  little  water  now  and  then  with 
a  brass  bowl  and  sluiced  away  such  portions  of 
my  anatomy  as  he  had  separated  from  me. 

Up  to  this  time  no  word  had  passed  between 
us.  But  at  last  he  made  an  overture. 

"Eh,  say,"  he  invited  me. 

Now  that  we  were  forced  to  sit  nose  to  nose, 
it  seemed  to  me  again  that  I  knew  him.  Yet  if 
it  had  been  in  a  bath  that  I  had  seen  him  I 
surely  would  have  remembered  the  tattoo  on 


UNDER  THE  ARCH  223 

his  arm.  It  was  not  an  anchor  or  a  heart  or  a 
butterfly  or  any  other  of  the  devices  dearest 
to  the  artist  in  India  ink.  It  looked  like  writing. 

"What  shall  I  say?"  I  answered.  "What  do 
you  want  to  know  ?" 

He  stared  at  me  for  a  moment  with  an  in 
tensity  that  my  fatuous  question  did  not  de 
serve.  Then : 

"Are  you  from  Austria?"  he  asked. 

It  was  a  query,  I  must  confess,  that  left  me  a 
little  cold.  I  had  expected  something  more  in 
keeping  with  those  melodramatic  eyes.  I  won 
dered,  too,  why  Turks  so  often  take  me  for  a 
German,  and  why  I  so  distinctly  fail  to  be 
flattered. 

"No,"  I  promptly  replied.  "I  come  from  much 
farther  away — from  America." 

"Ah,"  uttered  he,  as  if  disappointed. 

I  am  always  seeing  myself  act  the  Fat  Young 
Man  to  other  people's  Will  o'  the  Mill,  and  am 
almost  always  saddened  by  their  failure  to  play 
up  to  my  cue.  I  can,  however,  play  up  to  theirs. 

"Where  is  your  country?"  I  inquired,  know 
ing  perfectly  well  beforehand  what  he  would 
answer. 

"I  come  from  the  Black  Sea,"  he  said — "from 
Kastambol." 

"From  Kastambol !"  I  exclaimed,  beginning  to 
cheer  up  again.  I  hadn't  known  beforehand 


224  UNDER  THE  ARCH 

what  he  would  answer,  after  all;  for  I  had 
known  that  he  would  answer  Sivas,  All  bath- 
men  do,  with  such  tiresome  unanimity  that  I 
have  about  given  up  that  line  of  conversation. 
"I  have  heard  that  there  is  an  old  castle  there," 
I  went  on.  "Is  it  true  ?" 

"Yes.  It  is  from  the  time  of  the  Genoese." 
The  Turks,  despising  their  Greek  subjects,  at 
tribute  everything  that  antedates  their  own  era 
to  Genoa  the  Superb.  "But  I  have  never  seen 
it.  I  am  not  from  the  city.  I  am  from  a  village 
outside." 

So  far  so  good.  But  what  next?  There  was 
something  about  this  black-browed  young  man 
that  made  me  curious  concerning  that  vague 
village  of  his.  What  surgery  or  magic,  how 
ever,  could  get  anything  out  of  him  ?  I  am  not, 
alas,  of  those  gifted  personalities  who  turn  in 
side  out  at  will  their  most  casual  acquaintances. 
On  the  contrary,  people  I  have  known  all  my  life 
daily  become  for  me  darker  mysteries.  Yet  I 
thought  I  could  tell  things  about  my  village,  and 
its  houses  that  it  would  take  you  a  day  to  walk 
to  the  top  of,  and  its  machines  for  shooting  you 
there,  and  its  little  black  contrivances  for  talk 
ing  to  people  you  can't  see,  and  its  endless 
underground  rabbit  holes,  that  would  sound 
more  Arabian  than  any  night  those  sombre  eyes 
ever  stared  at. 


UNDER  THE  ARCH  225 

"In  my  country,"  he  suddenly  volunteered  out 
of  a  clear  sky,  "there  is  a  lake.  And  in  the  lake 
there  is  an  island.  And  on  the  island  there  is  a 
tree.  And  under  the  tree  there  is  a  hole.  And 
down  the  hole  stairs  go,  to  a  palace  under  the 
lake.  And  there  a  girl  sits,  a  Christian  girl 
with  yellow  hair,  combing  her  hair  with  a 
golden  comb.  And  she  has  a  golden  ball  in  her 
lap,  and  all  around  her  are  pearls  and  emeralds 
and  I  don't  know  what." 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  I  with  ravishment.  This 
truly  was  a  bathman  among  bathmen.  I  had 
heard  of  lakes  and  islands  and  subterranean 
princesses  before,  but  never  from  a  serious- 
looking  person  rather  taller  than  I.  After  all, 
we  were  getting  on !  "Have  you  ever  been  down 
the  stairs?"  I  inquired. 

"No.  We  are  afraid.  A  man  went  once  and 
he  did  not  come  back." 

"Well,  perhaps  you  would  not  have  wanted  to 
go  back,"  I  suggested. 

But  he  only  shrugged  his  shoulders.  And 
there  was  the  end  of  that !  He  should,  of  course, 
have  gone  on  and  told  me  a  long  and  compli 
cated  story,  which  I  would  quickly  have  run 
home  and  written  down  and  sent  to  America 
and  got  an  enormous  price  for.  Instead  of 
which  he  began  to  scrape  the  under  side  of  my 
upper  arm  so  ferociously  as  to  make  me  bawl 


226  UNDER  THE  ARCH 

out  that  I  wasn't  made  of  shoe  leather.  But  I 
presently  added,  borrowing  a  leaf  from  his 
book: 

"Eh,  say." 

"What  is  there  to  say?"  he  replied.  "It  is 
you  who  have  things  to  say.  You  go,  you  come, 
you  hear,  you  see,  while  we  are  always  shut  up. 
It  is  as  if  we  were  under  the  lake  in  my  country. 
See  how  little  light  comes  through  the  water!" 

He  pointed  to  the  greeny  bulPs-eyes  in  our 
own  little  dome.  That  rather  pleased  me,  you 
know. 

"Then  you  didn't  go  back!  Only — where  is 
the  yellow-haired  girl?" 

"Where?"  he  assented. 

And  silence  fell  heavily  again  between  us. 
Nothing  is  more  tantalizing,  thought  I,  than  the 
way  people  walk  about  the  world  stuffed  with 
the  most  interesting  information,  and  without 
any  reason  for  keeping  it  in  the  dark,  yet  totally 
unable  to  impart  it  to  any  human  being. 

"What  is  that  on  your  arm  ?"  I  asked  at  last, 
thinking  to  try  a  new  tack. 

"What  should  it  be?    It  is  nothing." 

"Let  me  see,"  I  insisted,  taking  hold  of  his 
arm  to  keep  him  from  moving  it. 

The  tattooing  was  in  writing,  but  in  writing 
I  couldn't  make  out — till  I  suddenly  realized 
that  although  it  was  on  a  Turkish  bathman's 


UNDER  THE  ARCH  227 

arm  it  was  in  German  script.  Then  I  managed 
to  read  it.  And  what  I  read  was  "Ach  Lisa, 
ach!" 

"Ach  Lisa,  ach!"  I  repeated  aloud,  smiling  at 
him  in  the  knowing  way  of  men  with  regard 
to  women. 

As  for  him,  he  pulled  his  arm  away.  It  oc 
curred  to  me  to  wonder  if  one  took  one's  bath- 
man  seriously,  and  I  began  to  see  where  Austria 
came  in.  Still,  I  continued  to  smile  my  knowing 
smile.  And  I  asked: 

"Have  you  ever  been  Under  the  Arch  ?" 

"I  went  once,"  he  replied  gravely.  "But  that 
is  finished." 

But  it  seemed  to  me,  from  the  way  he  looked, 
that  something  was  not  altogether  finished. 
For  me  at  least  it  was  not,  for  I  suddenly  began 
to  remember.  What  I  remembered,  primarily, 
was  what  I  am  always  forgetting — that  the 
world  doesn't  stand  still,  particularly  in  one's 
teens. 

"It  is  well  you  tell  no  lies,"  I  said,  "for  I  have 
seen  you  Under  the  Arch." 

"Then  it  was  a  long  time  ago." 

"It  was  a  long  time  ago.  It  was  five  or  six 
years  ago,  when  you  were  still  a  boy." 

He  looked  at  me  more  strangely  than  he  had 
looked  at  me  yet.  In  his  eyes  it  was  as  if  some 
thing  began  to  smoulder. 


228  UNDER  THE  ARCH 

II 

It  is  curious,  is  it  not,  what  things  will  stick 
in  the  memory  of  a  refined,  cultured,  and  lib 
erally  educated  gentleman — to  borrow  a  con 
secrated  phrase  from  the  club  women — who 
cultivates  a  taste  for  letters,  and  who  would 
have  liked  to  see  himself  a  creator  of  mem 
orable  houses  and  gardens.  It  is  curious  what 
things  will  stick,  on  some  dark  shelf,  and  what 
things  will  knock  them  down. 

Spurting  lights,  slippery  cobblestones,  over 
hanging  grapevines,  a  pervasive  odour  of  mastic, 
a  no  less  pervasive  jingle  of  crank  pianos,  and 
scraps  of  every  language  under  heaven,  and 
vivid  ladies  picking  their  way  on  high  heels 
between  house-fronts  that  climb  through  the 
dark  to  some  quiet  star — or  lounging,  much 
touched  up  as  to  complexion  and  much  cut  down 
as  to  toilette,  in  open  windows  of  the  ground 
floor,  not  unready  to  pluck  the  cap  off  the  head, 
the  purse  from  the  pocket,  or  even  the  heart  out 
of  the  body,  of  the  men  of  every  land  and  every 
sea  who  find  their  way  Under  the  Arch  in 
Galata.  .  .  .  That  is  what  suddenly  came  back 
to  me — that  and  the  picture  of  a  Turkish  peas 
ant  boy,  with  a  gay  handkerchief  knotted  about 
his  fez  and  coloured  tassels  bobbing  below  the 
knees  of  his  loose  blue  knickerbockers,  who 


UNDER  THE  ARCH  229 

strolled  down  a  certain  garish  lane  of  that  quar 
ter  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 

He  attracted  my  attention  because  Turks  are 
comparatively  few  Under  the  Arch,  being  the 
only  true  Puritans  left  in  the  world;  and  be 
cause  the  eyes  with  which  he  stared  at  this  and 
that,  from  under  heavy  black  eyebrows,  made 
such  an  intensity  of  darkness  in  the  colour  of 
his  handsome  face;  and  because  he  was  evi 
dently  so  young.  It  was  also  evident  that  every 
thing  he  saw  was  perfectly  strange  to  him — as 
if  he  had  wandered  Under  the  Arch  by  chance. 

As  I  watched  him  he  stopped  and  looked  into 
a  lighted  window.  The  window  belonged  to  a 
wineshop  of  a  kind  not  uncommon  Under  the 
Arch.  The  clients  were  served  by  gaudy  girls, 
whom  it  was  not  too  difficult  to  induce  to  sit 
down  and  share  a  glass.  In  one  corner  a  gypsy 
turned  the  handle  of  a  lanterna — the  crank 
piano  of  the  country.  Near  the  window  were 
sitting  two  women  and  a  man — also  a  Turk,  ap 
parently.  One  of  the  women,  catching  sight  of 
the  boy  outside,  got  up,  went  to  the  door,  smiled 
at  him,  and  beckoned.  She  was  a  creature  in 
scarlet  satin,  with  a  mop  of  hair  trailing  over 
one  eye.  The  boy  blushed,  half  smiled  in  return, 
shifted  his  feet  uneasily,  but  did  not  move. 
Then  the  creature,  still  smiling,  went  up  to  him, 
took  his  hand,  pulled  him  after  her  into  the 


230  UNDER  THE  ARCH 

wine-shop,  and  sat  him  down  beside  her  at  an 
empty  table. 

I,  who  stood  in  the  street  and  watched,  found 
myself  strangely  affected.  I  am  not  much  of  a 
missionary.  Otherwise  I  would  hardly  have 
been  standing  in  that  street.  It  was  such  a 
street  as  refined,  cultured,  and  liberally  edu 
cated  gentlemen  do  not  care  to  be  caught  in — at 
least  by  others  of  their  ilk.  If  you,  reader,  are 
displeased  at  catching  me  there,  turn  the  page 
or  shut  the  book.  Don't  expect  me  to  argue 
about  it.  My  business  is  to  tell  a  story — or 
rather  to  give  you  the  materials  for  telling 
yourself  a  story.  I  may  say,  though,  that  life 
interests  me  more  than  theories  of  life,  that  I 
have  never  found  that  curious  exhibition  to  con 
fine  itself  to  broad  and  seemly  avenues,  and  that 
in  a  grubby  byway  I  have  discovered  simplici 
ties  and  honesties  which  sometimes  fail  in  your 
guarded  drawing-room.  For  the  rest  my  tem 
perament  inclines  me  to  believe  with  the 
Frenchman  that  to  understand  is  to  pardon.  I 
also  believe  that  there  is  too  much  meddling 
with  other  people's  affairs,  and  I  am  for  letting 
a  man  hang  himself  with  his  own  rope.  Yet 

when  it  comes  to  a  boy !     Of  one's  own 

youth  one  fancies  that  if  one  had  known  this  or 
that,  or  if  at  a  certain  moment  one  set  of  acci 
dents  had  turned  up  instead  of  another 


UNDER  THE  ARCH  231 

Youth  is  so  priceless  a  thing,  it  lasts  so  little 
time,  such  endless  consequences  hang  on  its 
ignorant  decisions But  what,  I  asked  my 
self,  watching  youth's  encounter  through  the 
lighted  window,  is  one  to  do?  One  can't  put 
youth  in  a  padlock.  It  is  no  use  to  snatch  it  by 
the  hair  of  the  head  from  experience.  The  bit 
terest  experience  is  better  than  none.  Is  it, 
though?  Still,  if  I  marched  in  and  pulled  the 
boy  out,  what  would  prevent  his  marching  back 
as  soon  as  I  disappeared? 

His  encounter,  I  could  see,  was  too  embar 
rassing  to  be  pleasant.  His  cheeks  became  the 
colour  of  his  companion's  dress  and  he  didn't 
know  where  to  look  or  what  to  say.  The 
creature  continued  to  smile,  patted  his  hand, 
ordered  him  a  glass  of  mastic.  He  hesitated 
before  taking  a  sip.  Then  he  set  down  the  glass 
so  hurriedly  that  he  tipped  it  over,  coughing 
and  wiping  his  eyes.  At  that  everybody 
laughed.  The  creature  laughed  too.  In  a  mo 
ment,  however,  she  put  her  arm  about  him  and 
whispered  in  his  ear.  She  got  up,  and  he  got  up. 

But  all  of  a  sudden  he  bolted  out  of  the  door. 

Ill 

I  looked  at  my  bathman,  then,  in  whose 
sombre  eyes  something  began  to  smoulder.  Yes, 
those  must  be  the  same  eyes,  and  the  same  eye- 


232  UNDER  THE  ARCH 

brows.  He  had  grown  tall,  though,  and  his 
young  country  colour  was  gone.  Had  the  bath 
boiled  it  out  of  him,  or — what? 

"Then  you  have  seen  her?"  he  demanded. 

Ach  Lisa,  ach!  For  the  moment  a  smile 
almost  flickered  out  of  me.  I  remembered  how 
moved  I  had  been,  watching  through  the  lighted 
window  so  long  ago,  and  how  relieved  when  he 
ran  away.  It  had  confirmed  me  anew  in  my 
policy  of  non-intervention.  And  he  had  gone 
back,  naturally  enough.  And  the  scarlet  crea 
ture  had  gobbled 'him  up  after  all.  The  Scarlet 
Creature,  or  The  Bathman's  Romance !  I  could 
see  it  all.  Life  will  be  life,  even  Under  the 
Arch.  That  was  what  had  become  of  the  golden 
hour  of  his  youth.  And  all  he  had  to  show  for 
it  was  the  label  on  his  arm — and  the  smoulder 
ing  in  his  eyes.  Ach  Lisa,  ach! 

"Yes,"  I  answered.  "I  saw  her  come  to  the 
door,  beckon  to  you,  pull  you  in,  give  you  some 
thing  to  drink,  whisper  to  you,  and  then  I  saw 
you  run  away.  But  you  went  back,  eh  ?" 

And  I  reproduced  a  remnant  of  my  knowing 
smile.  He,  however,  looked  at  me  rather  oddly. 

"That  was  not  the  one !"  he  exclaimed  at  last 
with  abrupt  contempt. 

He  turned  away  and  began  to  prepare  for  the 
next  stage  in  operations  by  making  soapsuds 
with  a  tuft  of  raffia  in  a  big  copper  bowl.  I 


UNDER  THE  ARCH  233 

watched  him  with  an  access  of  curiosity  which 
would  make  it  appear  that  one  may,  after  all, 
take  one's  bathman  seriously.  Perhaps  he  felt 
the  intensity  of  my  silent  questioning.  Perhaps 
the  accident  of  my  having  seen  him  before,  of 
my  having  been  a  witness  of  that  moment  in  his 
life,  made  a  sort  of  bond  between  us.  Perhaps 
the  smouldering  in  him  had  never  found  vent. 
At  all  events  he  suddenly  dropped  his  raffia  and 
turned  back  to  me. 

"You  know,  my  Effendi,  what  it  is  to  be 
young.  After  I  ran  away  that  night  I  was 
ashamed.  I  heard  men  talk,  they  told  me 
things,  they  laughed,  they  would  not  let  me  for 
get.  How  should  I  know  anything  ?  I  was  only 
sixteen.  I  had  always  lived  in  my  village,  in 
Anatolia.  I  had  never  seen  women  or  thought 
of  them.  And  suddenly  to  see  them  like  that, 
with  bare  faces,  bare  arms,  in  clothes  made  to 
fit  them,  of  silk  and  velvet — not  such  bags  as 
our  women  wear!  And  the  lights,  and  the 
music !  I  didn't  know  there  were  such  things  in 
the  world.  It  was  like  the  palace  under  the  lake 
in  my  country. 

"So  I  went  back.  I  went  back  to  the  same 
place  to  show  them  I  was  not  afraid.  I  sat 
down  at  a  table  and  I  ordered  raki.  The  girl 
who  had  spoken  to  me  before  was  there,  sitting 
in  a  corner  with  a  sailor.  She  remembered  me 


234  UNDER  THE  ARCH 

and  she  laughed.  There  is  my  little  Anatolian !' 
she  said.  'Come  here,  little  Anatolian !'  " 

He  stopped  again  and  pulled  up  the  copper 
bowl,  as  if  uncertain  whether  to  go  on  with  his 
story  or  to  shampoo  my  head.  I  waited  for  his 
decision  with  a  curious  suspense. 

"Just  then  another  girl  came  and  sat  down 
beside  me,"  he  finally  said.  "Effendim,  she  was 
the  princess  under  the  lake  in  my  country.  Her 
hair  was  like  gold,  as  I  had  never  seen  hair 
before,  and  her  eyes  were  so  blue  they  fright 
ened  me.  We  say,  you  know,  that  people  like 
that  have  the  Evil  Eye.  I  was  frightened  and 
my  heart  began  to  beat  as  if  I  had  run  from  St. 
Sophia  to  the  Taxim.  At  first  she  only  looked 
at  me  and  smiled,  in  such  a  way  that  I  was  both 
less  frightened  and  more  frightened.  Then  she 
began  to  talk  to  me.  'Why  did  you  order  that 
raki?'  she  asked.  It  is  bad.  Don't  drink  it.' 
When  she  spoke  I  began  to  tremble.  I  always 
trembled  when  I  heard  her  voice — to  the  last 
time."  He  paused  an  instant.  "I  could  not  say 
anything.  I  did  not  know  what  to  say.  She 
saw  it  and  she  went  on  talking  to  me.  As  my 
mother  never  spoke  to  me,  Effendim,  she  spoke 
to  me.  She  told  me  I  mustn't  go  again  to  such 
places.  She  asked  me  where  I  lived,  what  work 
I  did,  when  I  was  going  to  my  country.  And  at 
last  she  sent  me  away." 


UNDER  THE  ARCH  235 

I  almost  smiled  again,  remembering  my  own 
attitude  on  a  certain  occasion.  But  I  could  tell 
myself  that  I  had  no  Evil  Eye,  and  that  in  me 
the  voice  of  intervention  would  never  have 
made  him  tremble!  It  was  curious,  though, 
what  a  power  he  had,  with  so  little  of  a  story, 
to  move  me  so  much  a  second  time.  It  was 
partly  the  intensity  of  his  tone  and  of  his 
sombre  look.  It  was  also  the  curiosities  within 
curiosities  he  set  alight — about  the  world  he 
lived  in,  about  his  strange  lost  princess.  I 
must  say  he  did  very  little  to  satisfy  them. 

"Vallah"  he  exclaimed  after  a  moment,  "I 
understand  nothing  of  your  Europe.  Some 
times  I  want  to  go,  to  look.  Sometimes  I  am 
afraid.  Are  you  devils  there,  or  men — who 
make  all  these  machines  that  walk  on  the  land 
and  swim  in  the  sea  and  fly  in  the  air  ?  And  the 
women — of  them  I  understand  least.  Are  they 
all  like  that  one?  Are  they  all  bad?  Can  you 
call  such  a  woman  bad  ?" 

I  shook  my  head  vaguely.  But  I  doubted  if 
he  noticed  me. 

"When  she  sent  me  away  that  night,"  he 
went  on,  "she  thought  it  was  finished.  But  it 
only  began.  Every  night  I  went  back  and 
watched  in  the  street  until  I  found  her  again. 
And  after  that,  for  three  years,  I  saw  her  nearly 
every  day;  but  not  as  you  think.  She  never 


236  UNDER  THE  ARCH 

would  let  me  come  to  her  house.  I  always  saw 
her  in  wineshops,  in  coffee-houses,  in  the  street. 
She  made  me  go  to  school,  too,  and  she  paid  for 
it.  I  can  read,  Effendim,  because  of  her.  She 
could  read  too,  and  she  could  write,  and  she 
could  sing,  and  she  could  play — your  piano,  our 
lute.  She  knew  everything.  But  she  didn't 
know  how  to  keep  me  from  becoming  mad.  I 
thought  of  nothing  else  but  her.  I  wanted  to 
take  her  away  from  Galata.  In  the  three  years, 
you  see,  I  became  a  man.  But  she  would  not 
listen.  She  said  she  was  too  old,  she  said  she 
was  too  bad,  she  said  she  loved  me  too  much, 
she  said  she  could  never  live  in  Anatolia  or  I  in 
Europe.  How  do  I  know  what  she  said,"  he 
broke  off,  "or  where  she  is  now?  Akh  Lisa! 
Akh!" 

It  became  more  and  more  evident  that  the 
story,  such  as  it  was,  was  one  which  you  have 
to  tell  yourself.  There  was  enough  obvious  in 
terplay  in  it  of  East  and  West,  of  blue  eyes  and 
black,  of  innocence  and — must  I  say  corruption  ? 
— the  eternal  lure  of  the  contrary.  And  one 
could  more  or  less  make  out  the  case  of  the 
dark-browed  young  peasant  lover.  But  what  of 
the  obscure  courtesan,  cast  out  from  her  own 
land  into  that  place  of  all  vulgarity  and  dis 
aster,  who  had  become  for  him  a  princess  of 
fairy  lore? 


UNDER  THE  ARCH  237 

"What  is  it,  Effendim,"  he  broke  out,  "that  a 
woman  does  to  a  man?  The  world  is  full  of 
them.  Why  will  not  one  do  as  well  as  another  ? 

Why "  He  threw  up  his  hand,  as  they  do. 

But  presently  his  eye  followed  mine  to  the  in 
scription  pricked  on  his  arm.  "She  wrote  it 
there,"  he  said.  "She  always  told  me  I  didn't 
know  how  to  say  anything  else !  She  wrote  it 
there  the  last  time  I  saw  her — the  first  time  I 
went  to  her  house.  At  last  I  made  her  open  the 
door  to  me.  And  I  begged  her  as  I  had  never 
begged  her  to  go  away  with  me.  'Akh  Lisa!'  I 
said.  'Akh,  I  can't  go  on  like  this.  I  can't  work 
in  the  day.  I  can't  sleep  at  night.  All  the  time 
I  see  your  eyes.  They  make  a  fire  in  my  heart.' 
She  smiled  a  little,  as  she  knew  how  to  smile, 
and  then  she  wrote  this  on  my  arm  with  a 
needle.  And  then " 

Another  bathman  came  into  the  alcove,  fol 
lowed  by  an  old  gentleman  who  sat  down  oppo 
site  me.  My  bathman  stirred  his  copper  bowl 
again  and  then  put  me  past  all  power  of  sight  or 
speech  by  pouring  soapsuds  over  my  head. 
Across  the  vaulted  room  the  bather  in  the  By 
zantine  alcove  was  still  singing  his  melancholy 
old  love  song  of  Asia.  "Aman!  Aman!"  he  sang, 
making  strange  reverberations  quiver  up  into 
the  dome. 


FOR  THE  FAITH 


HALF  way  up  the  steps  of  the  Cup  Sellers, 
which  climb  from  the  vine-hung  exit  of 
the  Spice  Bazaar  to  the  Street  of  the 
Brass  Beaters,  there  stands  a  certain  building  of 
light  stone.  There  is  nothing  to  distinguish  it 
from  a  hundred  other  modern  buildings  in  the 
ancient  city  of  Stamboul.  The  black  marble 
pillars  flanking  the  entrance  are  as  easily 
matched  as  the  big  red-and-gold  Croats  watch 
ing  between  them.  But  a  passer  is  more  than 
likely  to  cast  a  curious  glance  into  the  doorway. 
And  the  carpet-workers  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  street,  as  they  spread  the  brilliant  crudities 
of  the  new  Anatolian  looms  to  the  chastening 
of  sun  and  rain,  or  give  the  last  toning  of  pol 
ished  flint  and  experienced  palm — they  ask 
themselves :  "Who  are  these  gyaours  who  come 
from  strange  lands  and  build  great  khans,  while 
we  dwell  in  sheds?"  But  they  do  not  answer 
the  question.  Nor  do  the  lancers,  on  their  way 
to  guard  the  Sultan  at  mosque  of  a  Friday 
morning,  when  they  fill  the  steep  incline  be- 

238 


FOR  THE  FAITH  239 

tween  the  stair-sidewalks  with  a  cataract  of 
plunging  horses  and  scarlet  banderoles.  A  mo 
ment  they  turn  their  dark  faces  upward  in  half 
defiance,  but  the  next  they  have  other  to  think 
about.  Not  so  however  the  ministers  of  state 
who  sometimes  drive  by  with  galloping  out 
riders.  Not  seldom  do  they  carry  the  question 
to  their  desks,  wondering  what  secret  is  behind 
those  light  stone  walls,  that  busies  so  many  and 
reaches  so  far  and  keeps  an  embassy  in  such 
irritating  activity. 

In  a  high  corner  room  of  this  very  building 
there  sat  one  day  the  Reverend  Thomas  Redding. 
There  was  little  in  the  aspect  of  the  Reverend 
Thomas  Redding  to  suggest  mystery  or  subver 
sion.  On  the  contrary,  as  he  leaned  at  his  desk 
with  his  fingers  buried  in  his  round  gray  beard, 
his  appearance  was  distinctly  conciliating.  The 
kindly  blue  eye  with  which  he  looked  forth  upon 
the  world,  the  temperate  ruddiness  of  the  coun 
tenance  which  it  illumined,  the  comely  contour 
of  his  figure — which  seemed  somewhat  under 
the  middle  height  and  which  was  as  far  from 
the  Silenus  as  from  the  ascetic — all  these 
pointed  out  a  person  of  a  gentle  and  comfortable 
middle  life. 

If  the  furnishings  of  his  apartment  bespoke 
the  garniture  of  his  mind,  one  would  conclude 
that  his  thoughts  were  far  from  worldly  things. 


240  FOR  THE  FAITH 

The  chief  recommendation  of  the  room  was  its 
view,  which  looked  across  the  huge  umbrella 
pine  of  the  carpet-workers  aforementioned  to 
the  Golden  Horn  and  the  lower  Bosphorus.  For 
the  rest,  one  gained  an  impression  of  nudity. 
In  the  middle  of  the  oilcloth  floor  rose  a  desk, 
at  which  Mr.  Redding  sat  as  one  cast  away  upon 
a  reef.  The  other  furniture  might  have  been 
riveted  to  the  walls.  Of  these,  two  were  almost 
concealed  by  the  glass-doored  bookcases  of  our 
grandfathers.  The  volumes  thus  protected 
against  the  ravages  of  the  elements  included 
such  works  as  "Barnes'  Notes,"  Paley's  "Evi 
dences  of  Christianity/'  and  "Edwards  on  the 
Will";  or  lighter  literature  like  "The  Romance 
of  Missions"  by  the  lamented  Maria  West,  "The 
Devil  in  Turkey,"  and  "Light  on  a  Dark  River" ; 
together  with  numerous  other  publications  con 
cerning  more  or  less  directly  the  evangelical 
enterprise.  After  the  bookcases,  the  most  con 
spicuous  object  in  the  room  was  a  large  map. 
This  might  have  been  found  unique  by  some,  in 
that  its  colouring  indicated  religious  distinc 
tions  rather  than  political.  The  upper  half  of 
the  western  hemisphere  was  of  a  virgin  white, 
the  lower  was  shaded  with  red— in  reminis 
cence,  perhaps,  of  the  Scarlet  Woman.  The 
same  roseate  hue  tinted  considerable  portions  of 
the  European  continent,  which  faded  to  white 


FOR  THE  FAITH  241 

in  the  northwest  and  changed  easterly  to  a  bot 
tle  green.  The  very  eastern  rim,  however,  as 
the  greater  part  of  Asia  and  Africa,  was  dyed 
with  black.  A  relief  to  this  uncompromising 
darkness  was  afforded  by  sporadic  islands  of 
white  and  radiating  shoals  of  gray,  which,  with 
similar  archipelagoes  in  red  and  green,  were 
intended  to  designate  centres  and  spheres  of 
missionary  influence. 

Upon  this  decorative  object  were  fixed  the 
eyes  of  Mr.  Redding  at  the  moment  of  our  in 
troduction  to  him.  He  had  a  secret  fibre  of  the 
adventurous,  which  had  always  thrilled  to  the 
sight  of  a  map  or  the  tale  of  a  traveller.  This 
time,  however,  another  chord  was  touched,  as 
he  considered  that  sable  fringe  of  Europe.  He 
looked  sadly  away  from  it,  across  the  red  roofs, 
the  bubbly  domes,  the  marble  and  cypress  min 
arets,  to  the  blue  of  the  Bosphorus.  It  had 
grown  wondrously  familiar  to  him — this  scene 
which  had  once  been  the  tissue  of  his  airiest 
dreams.  He  recalled  with  what  emotion  he  had 
first  realized  the  whiteness  of  the  field  for  the 
harvest;  with  what  exaltation  he  had  received 
his  acceptance  to  the  cause;  with  what  a 
strangely  mingled  feeling  of  triumph  he  had 
entered  this  ancient  city,  intoxicated  with  the 
novelty  of  his  sensations  and  proud  to  have 
come  while  there  was  yet  to  do.  But  thirty 


242  FOR  THE  FAITH 

years  had  passed,  and  what  had  he  accom 
plished?  His  enthusiasm  had  availed  nothing 
against  the  dishonour  of  that  darkness.  He  had 
never  so  much  as  turned  one  Moslem  from  the 
error  of  his  way. 

It  was  of  the  man's  humility  that  he  did  not, 
as  some  might  have  done,  lay  the  blame  upon 
the  Moslem.  And  he  had  just  begun  to  search 
anew  the  sources  of  his  own  inadequacy  when 
a  knock  at  the  door  interrupted  him. 

"Come  in!"  he  cried,  looking  over  his 
shoulder. 

Two  persons  entered.  The  moment  of  their 
advent  was  occupied  by  such  profound  salaams 
that  their  faces  were  invisible.  Then  Mr.  Red 
ding  perceived,  with  feet  together  and  hands 
clasped  humbly  before  him,  a  personage  of  some 
forty  years — short,  thick-set,  dark-skinned; 
black-eyed,  black-haired,  and  black-bearded; 
with  the  hooked  nose  of  the  East,  the  red  fez  of 
Turkey,  and  the  frock  coat  of  Europe ;  and  col- 
larless  withal.  Beside  this  sharp-eyed  and  smil 
ing  individual  stood,  in  a  similar  attitude,  a  boy 
of  nine  or  ten,  whose  small  countenance  was 
as  black  and  as  brilliant  as  a  bit  of  cut  onyx. 
His  appearance  was  rendered  the  more  striking 
by  the  complete  accoutrement  of  a  Turkish 
field-marshal. 

Upon  these  two  the  Reverend  Mr.  Redding 


FOR  THE  FAITH  243 

cast  an  eye  of  no  little  astonishment.  Not  so 
much  that  he  was  unused  to  such  spectacles,  as 
that  there  comes  a  time  in  the  life  of  man  when 
transitions  are  difficult  to  follow.  But  he 
speedily  recovered  himself,  smiled,  bowed, 
waved  his  hand,  and  rose  to  detach  two  chairs 
from  the  military  row  under  the  map.  It  would 
not  have  occurred  to  him  that  his  salute  was 
less  sweeping  and  less  honourable  than  those 
which  he  had  received,  for  he  had  never  quite 
yielded  to  the  customs  of  the  East ;  nor  could  he 
look  upon  a  "native"  as  other  than  an  inferior. 

The  conversation  opened  in  a  general  way, 
the  visitors  demonstrating  how  strange  may  be 
rendered  the  use  of  a  chair  by  the  custom  of  the 
divan.  After  those  extended  and  searching  in 
quiries  which  are  the  corner-stone  of  Eastern 
courtesy,  the  elder  of  the  two  at  length  bent 
forward,  glanced  inquiringly  toward  the  inner 
room,  and  asked  in  a  confidential  tone : 

"Are  you  alone?" 

"We  are,"  assured  the  missionary. 

"I  have  something  for  you,"  continued  the 

stranger,  "if "  He  looked  again  toward  the 

inner  room. 

"Let  us  go  in  there,  then,"  suggested  his  host, 
with  gratifying  perspicacity. 

Once  inside,  the  stranger  cast  a  quick  eye 
about  him,  proceeded  to  fumble  in  the  inner  re- 


244  FOR  THE  FAITH 

cesses  of  his  being,  and  finally  produced  a  green 
silk  bag  which  depended  by  a  cord  from  his 
neck.  Undoing  the  somewhat  complicated  fas 
tenings  of  this  object,  he  took  from  it  a  letter 
which  he  handed  to  the  missionary. 

That  gentleman  accepted  the  document  and 
regarded  it,  as  also  its  bearer,  in  no  little  amaze. 

"He  is  in  Fezzan!"  whispered  the  stranger 
behind  his  hand. 

"In  Fezzan !"  exclaimed  the  Reverend 
Thomas,  in  deeper  mystification  than  before. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  stranger.  "He  is  selling 
dates  in  the  Oasis  of  Sebkha.  It  is  written  as 
I  say." 

Mr.  Redding  continued  to  question  the  mys 
terious  communication  with  his  eye.  At  last, 
however,  it  occurred  to  him  that  the  missive 
itself  might  contain  light  to  illumine  his  dark 
ness.  Accordingly  he  broke  the  seal  and  de 
ciphered  its  brief  contents.  Then  he  looked  up 
and  uttered  cordially : 

"I  am  glad  to  make  your  acquaintance,  You- 
souf  Bey.  You  are  welcome  to  our  house.  But 
Fezzan!"  he  exclaimed  again.  "What  is  he 
doing  in  Fezzan  ?" 

"He  is  selling  dates,"  repeated  the  stranger, 
with  his  curious  smile. 

"But  why?"  protested  the  missionary. 

The  stranger  shrugged  his  shoulders : 


FOR  THE  FAITH  245 

"Eh !  His  superiors  suspected  that  he  learned 
too  much  in  England.  They  also  found  one  of 
your  holy  books.  Therefore — Fezzan!" 

"Fezzan!"  iterated  the  Reverend  Thomas 
once  again.  The  name  seemed  to  have  a  fas 
cination  for  him.  "Where  is  this  Fezzan?" 

"You  go  to  Tripoli,"  answered  Yousouf  Bey. 
"From  there  you  take  camel  southward,  toward 
Kanem  and  Bornu." 

The  little  blackamoor,  who  had  been  staring 
solemnly  about  at  the  tall  book-cases,  suddenly 
looked  toward  his  companion. 

"Bornu!"  repeated  Mr.  Redding,  turning  to 
consult  his  map  in  the  outer  room. 

At  the  second  pronunciation  of  the  name  the 
little  blackamoor  began  to  whimper,  and  a  big 
tear  splashed  the  gold  of  his  cuff.  Yousouf  Bey 
thereupon  shot  him  a  look  which  speedily  dried 
the  child's  tears.  He  repressed  another  whim 
per,  dug  his  fists  into  his  eyes,  and  resumed  his 
inspection  of  the  cheerless  apartment. 

The  Reverend  Thomas,  in  the  meantime,  stood 
intent  before  his  map.  The  region  which  he 
sought  was  covered  with  so  dense  a  black  that 
the  names  were  indicated  perforce  by  white 
letters.  "What  an  opportunity!"  he  thought 
to  himself,  the  old  habit  of  mind  triumphant 
above  the  ruling  of  experience.  Then  he  said 
aloud : 


246  FOR  THE  FAITH 

"So  he  was  exiled !  I  never  knew.  I  supposed 
he  had  lost  interest." 

"Oh,  no !  His  Christian  teaching  is  what  sup 
ports  him  in  his  exile.  You  must  see  that  being 
a  date  pedler  in  an  oasis  of  Fezzan  is  quite  dif 
ferent  from  being  a  colonel  of  artillery  at  Con 
stantinople.  But  he  is  very  cheerful.  And" — 
Yousouf  Bey  lowered  his  voice — "he  does  much 
for  your  faith.  I,  too,  have  become  interested. 
My  home  is  really  there,  you  know.  I  have  only 
one  wife  here.  The  others  are  in  Tripoli  and 
Fezzan.  I  greatly  admire  your  Prophet.  His 
followers  seem  to  have  something  which  those 
of  Mohammed  have  not.  I  would  like  to  know 
more  about  him." 

Mr.  Redding  was  strangely  moved  by  the 
words  of  this  emissary  from  afar.  The  mystery 
of  strange  places  hung  about  him,  and  the 
romance  of  unknown  deeds.  The  incongruous- 
ness  of  his  declarations  seemed  not  grotesque, 
but  almost  pathetic.  And  it  was  providential 
that  this  encounter  should  have  occurred  at  the 
very  nadir  of  his  own  discouragement.  He  had 
then  been  partly  instrumental,  after  all,  in 
planting  the  seed  of  the  Word  in  dark  and  dis 
tant  regions.  Who  knew  what  might  yet  come 
forth? 

"I  am  very  glad  indeed  that  you  came  to  see 
me!"  he  uttered  feelingly.  "We  must  have  a 


FOR  THE  FAITH  247 

great  many  talks  together.  But  to-morrow  is 
our  holy  day,  and  we  have  meetings  that  will 
tell  you  more  than  I  can.  Come  and  bring  your 
little  companion.  We  have  classes  for  boys  as 
well  as  for  men."  He  bent  over  and  took  the 
child's  small  black  hand:  "And  do  you  come 
from  Fezzan  too?"  he  asked. 

The  boy  looked  up  with  round  frightened 
eyes.  At  a  word  from  his  companion,  he  cere 
moniously  kissed  the  missionary's  hand.  Then 
Yousouf  Bey  explained  that  Arabic  was  all  they 
understood  in  those  regions. 

"Ah,  well,  bring  him  too !"  returned  Mr.  Red 
ding.  "He  will  have  the  other  children  to  play 
with  at  least."  He  patted  the  cheek  of  tKe  little 
blackamoor,  whose  wide  eyes  were  intent  upon 
the  unintelligible  colloquy. 

"Now  that  I  have  done  my  errand  I  must  not 
take  your  time,"  said  the  stranger,  rising. 

"Not  at  all!"  protested  the  other.  "May  I 
look  for  you  to-morrow?" 

"I  will  come,"  replied  Yousouf  Bey,  salaaming 
as  profoundly  as  before. 

II 

He  went.  He  went  not  once,  but  several  times 
and  in  several  places.  He  even  arose  one  Sun 
day  before  a  polyglot  Sunday-school  and  deliv 
ered  himself  of  a  harangue,  in  which  he  eulo- 


248  FOR  THE  FAITH 

gized  the  holy  book  there  taught  in  so  many 
tongues,  and  announced  his  intention  of  intro 
ducing  it  to  the  natives  of  Central  Africa. 

It  can  be  imagined  with  what  emotions  Mr. 
Redding  observed  these  developments.  Upon 
each  appearance  of  Yousouf  Bey  at  some  service 
of  worship  the  good  man  would  hover  about 
him,  anxious  to  advance  any  favourable  impres 
sion,  yet  fearful  of  interrupting  by  importunate 
question  any  work  of  grace  which  might  be 
going  on  in  the  Mohammedan's  heart.  So  it 
was  that  their  later  meetings  had  been  in  a  way 
public.  But  after  two  or  three  weeks  Yousouf 
Bey  called  again  at  the  missionary's  office.  And 
Mr.  Redding,  in  expressing  his  cordiality,  at 
last  ventured  to  utter  his  hope  that  these  ex 
periences  had  been  the  means  of  affording  a 
clearer  vision,  a  more  definite  intent. 

The  Tripolitan  gave  assurance  that  he  had 
received  the  greatest  benefit: 

"I  can  understand,"  he  said,  "the  enthu 
siasm  of  Christians  for  your  Prophet.  He  was 
a  noble  man.  The  Jews  did  wrong  to  murder 
him." 

The  missionary  was  disappointed.  The  senti 
ment  expressed  could  not  be  condemned;  yet  it 
seemed  too  catholic. 

"I  hoped  we  might  see  your  little  boy,"  he 
said,  vaguely  hoping  to  bring  about  more 


FOR  THE  FAITH  249 

pointed  declarations — "the  little  black  boy  who 
was  with  you." 

"He  ?  Oh,  no !  I  sold  him  the  very  day  after 
I  met  you — to  Tahir  Pasha.  He  will  make  a 
good  eunuch.  They  are  the  best — from  Bornu." 

"Sold  him!  That  little  boy!"  exclaimed  the 
horrified  missionary. 

"Yes.  What  else  should  I  do  with  him?"  in 
quired  the  Tripolitan,  with  an  amused  smile. 
"That  is  part  of  my  business." 

"To  sell  slaves?" 

"Yes." 

Mr.  Redding  stared  blankly  at  the  man.  He 
had  expected  a  confession  of  faith,  and  what 
sort  of  confession  was  this  ?  Yet  in  the  depths 
of  his  disillusionment  he  found  courage  to 
realize  that  the  Word  could  not  take  lodgment 
in  such  a  heart;  that  here  was  one  whose  er 
rors  first  needed  reproof ;  that  the  reproof  must 
not  be  so  severe  as  to  discourage  further  in 
terest. 

"You  say  you  admire  Christ,"  at  length  he 
began  gently ;  "but  you  have  wives  in  different 
cities  and  you  sell  slaves.  Christ  would  not 
have  done  such  things." 

"Eh,  Effendim!"  protested  the  slave-dealer 
with  a  deprecating  shrug,  a  suave  wave  of  the 
hand.  "Your  Prophet  was  a  holy  man,  of  those 
hermits  who  do  not  take  wives,  who  do  not  do 


250  FOR  THE  FAITH 

many  things  that  other  men  do.  We  have  all 
seen  them.  But  I  am  not  a  holy  man."  He 
smiled.  "Moreover,  I  travel.  I  am  a  merchant. 
And  it  is  much  less  expensive  to  keep  three 
wives  in  three  places  than  to  take  one  with  you 
wherever  you  go.  There  are  also  other  ad 
vantages.  I  am  sure  you  would  find  it  so."  He 
smiled  and  bowed,  as  if  in  deference  to  his  inter 
locutor's  intelligence.  Before  the  scandalized 
missionary  could  summon  protest  he  went  on: 
"As  for  the  slaves,  they  are  the  only  money  we 
have  in  many  parts  of  Africa.  I  sell  cotton 
there,  I  sell  silk,  I  sell  iron,  I  sell  whatever  I 
sell;  and  what  have  they  to  pay  me?  Nothing 
but  shells  or  blacks.  The  shells  are  useless  to 
me.  I  must  take  the  blacks.  But  it  is  much 
better  for  them,  too.  As  you  see,  I  am  a 
kind-hearted  man.  I  do  not  maltreat  them. 
And  they  are  much  happier  up  here  in  Con 
stantinople  than  to  run  naked  there  in  the 
desert!" 

There  was  something  in  the  conviction  with 
which  these  remarks  were  uttered,  as  in  the 
courtesy  of  their  expression,  which  Mr.  Redding 
found  indefinably  disconcerting.  He  felt  that 
his  part  would  have  been  easier  had  the  inter 
view  taken  a  more  polemic  turn.  But  again, 
before  he  could  gather  his  words,  the  other  fore 
stalled  him. 


FOR  THE  FAITH  251 

"There  is  a  matter,"  continued  the  slave- 
dealer,  looking  about  and  drawing  confidentially 
nearer,  "of  which  I  wish  to  speak  to  you.  I 
travel,  as  you  know.  My  business  takes  me  far. 
I  have  been  to  Timbuktu  and  the  ocean.  I  have 
seen  rivers  which  even  the  English  have  not 
seen.  And  I  am  interested,  as  you  also  know,  in 
your  holy  man.  I  am  interested  in  your  work. 
We  have  nothing  like  this."  The  dramatic  wave 
of  his  hand  visibly  included  the  entire  building. 
"Now" — he  lowered  his  voice  still  further  and 
looked  keenly  into  Mr.  Redding's  eyes — "I 
would  be  very  much  pleased  if  you  would  let  me 
have  a  case  of  Bibles  to  take  back  with  me.  I 
am  going  in  a  few  days.  I  could  spread  them  all 
over  the  Sahara." 

The  kindly  blue  eyes  were  fixed  upon  the 
black  and  glittering  ones  in  speechless  wonder. 
There  were  elements  of  contrast  in  this  suave 
slave-dealer,  with  his  frock  coat  and  his  lack 
of  collar,  his  guilty  experience  of  dark  por 
tions  of  the  earth  and  his  interest  in  Chris 
tianity,  which  the  Reverend  Thomas  had  never 
encountered. 

Yousouf  Bey  did  not  quite  read  the  uncer 
tainty  which  he  saw  in  the  blue  eyes. 

"But  if  you  do  not  wish "  he  began 

tentatively. 

"Why,  of  course  I  wish!"  broke  in  the  mis- 


252  FOR  THE  FAITH 

sionary  with  vehemence,  homing  from  his  rev- 
ery.    'Of  course  you  shall  have  them !" 

Ill 

The  case  of  Bibles  was  duly  prepared.  As  for 
Yousouf  Bey,  however,  he  failed  to  call  for  it. 
Day  after  day  Mr.  Redding  waited,  expecting 
that  every  knock  would  be  succeeded  by  the  en 
trance  of  his  African  friend.  But  the  box  lay 
under  everybody's  feet  till  its  fresh  planks  took 
on  the  dishonour  of  grime.  And  finally  Mr.  Red 
ding,  sad,  but  abounding  in  faith,  caused  it  to 
be  stored  in  his  inner  room. 

The  incident  touched  him  more  nearly  than 
might  have  appeared.  His  evangelical  zeal,  his 
interest  in  strange  places,  and  that  human 
quality  which  makes  a  new  or  a  distant  enter 
prise  more  engrossing  than  an  old  or  a  present 
one,  had  all  been  deeply  concerned  in  this  mat 
ter.  At  those  moments  when  one  looks  for  the 
tangible  result  of  the  day's  work,  his  casting  up 
of  the  thirty  years  filled  him  with  deeper  dejec 
tion  than  ever.  He  felt,  in  his  humility,  that 
the  occasion  had  come  and  that  he  had  been 
found  wanting. 

Accordingly  it  was  not  without  pleasure  that 
he  suddenly  looked  up  from  his  papers,  one  day 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  thirty-first  year,  and 
met  the  eyes  of  his  old  friend  Yousouf  Bey. 


FOR  THE  FAITH  253 

This  worthy  was  frock-coated,  smiling,  and  col- 
larless  as  ever.  There  was  also  more  familiarity 
in  his  greeting. 

"You  must  have  wondered  why  I  never  took 
my  Bibles,"  he  began  affably,  going  straight  to 
the  point.  "It  was  a  great  disappointment  to 
me.  I  travelled  farther  than  ever  this  time. 
But" — he  drew  his  chair  close  to  the  desk, 
looked  carefully  around  as  if  to  descry  legs 
under  the  book-cases,  and  whispered  dramati 
cally — "the  police!  You  know  what  they  are. 
I  was  on  my  way  here  when  they  stopped  me. 
They  took  me  to  the  Ministry.  There  they  told 
me  all  I  had  done — how  many  times  I  had  been 
here,  how  many  times  I  had  gone  to  the  other 
places,  what  I  had  said,  what  I  had  thought! 
Then  they  threatened  that  if  I  came  here  again 
they  would  lock  me  up,  and  they  sent  me  under 
guard  to  my  steamer.  What  could  I  do  ?" 

Had  Mr.  Redding  been  inclined  to  reproach  he 
would  have  softened  under  this  recital.  But  at 
such  evidence  of  the  power  of  faith,  his  mood 
was  far  from  aggressive.  He  was  even  a  little 
fluttered.  He  supremely  desired  to  say  the 
right  thing.  In  Yousouf  Bey,  however,  there 
was  a  troubling  element  of  the  uncertain  which 
required  diplomatic  procedure. 

"I  have  kept  your  books  for  you,"  he  said. 
"Was  my  friend  in  Fezzan  disappointed?" 


254  FOR  THE  FAITH 

Yousouf  Bey  smiled. 

"I  did  not  get  to  Fezzan  this  time,"  he  replied. 
"It  is  a  long  story.  I  took  three  Circassian  girls 
from  here,  and  when  I  reached  Alexandria  I  was 
arrested  for  stealing  them.  But  I  said  they 
were  my  wives,  and  nobody  could  prove  they 
were  not,  so  I  got  away.  Ah — they  made  my 
fortune,  those  girls.  May  their  shadow  never 
grow  less!  From  Egypt  I  went  down  to  Zan 
zibar,  and  there  I  sold  one  to  the  Sultan.  He 
would  have  taken  the  three,  but  he  hadn't  the 
money.  He  gave  me  a  thousand  pounds.  And 
she  was  worth  it.  They  are  all  black  down 
there."  He  paused  a  moment,  his  eye  clouded 
with  reminiscence. 

The  Reverend  Thomas  seized  that  opportunity 
to  raise  his  voice.  The  issue  was  fair  and 
square : 

"You  told  me  that  you  only  took  the  blacks 
because  you  had  to.  We  do  not  have  to  take 
Circassians  for  money,  here.  And  will  they 
be  much  happier  down  there  among  naked 
savages  ?" 

The  Tripolitan  smiled  as  if  he  knew  how  to 
enjoy  a  laugh  at  his  own  expense,  nodded  in 
dulgently,  and  laid  a  soothing  hand  on  the 
other's  arm. 

"You — do — not — un — der — stand!"  he  said. 
"Do  not  try  to  understand.  We  smoke  out  of 


FOR  THE  FAITH  255 

different  nargilehs,  but  my  soul !  we  can  still  be 
friends!  Now  hear  what  I  did  with  the  other 
two.  There  in  Zanzibar,  I  met  the  agent  of  an 
Indian  Rajah.  They  are  on  the  lookout,  you 
know,  these  great  people."  He  spoke  in  the 
dramatic  sing-song  which  is  the  charm  of  East 
ern  inflection,  aiding  his  story  with  a  play  of 
hands  and  eyes  which  gave  it  inimitable 
vivacity.  "So  I  went  to  India.  And  the  Rajah 
bought  both  of  them.  If  I  had  only  known! 
He  would  have  bought  the  third,  too.  But  it  is 
all  kismet,  this  business.  You  never  know.  He 
paid  me  though,  the  Rajah.  I  cleared  nearly 
three  thousand  pounds  on  the  whole  business. 
Cleared,  you  understand.  It  costs,  an  adventure 
like  that.  I  had  to  take  them  like  sultanas." 
He  leaned  back  smiling  in  his  chair,  as  if  await 
ing  the  congratulations  of  his  auditor.  That 
gentleman,  however,  maintained  a  deep  silence. 
The  bewildered  disappointment  in  him  amounted 
almost  to  a  physical  hurt.  And  if  it  was  not 
manifest  in  his  countenance,  at  least  his  disap 
proval  seemed  to  be.  For  Yousouf  Bey  leaned 
forward  again. 

"I  suppose  you  think,"  he  uttered  with  dig 
nity,  "that  I  might  have  given  them  Bibles  in 
stead  of  selling  them.  It  would  have  been  no 
use,  however.  They  are  only  women.  But  I  did 
what  I  could  for  them.  Here  what  would  they 


256  FOR  THE  FAITH 

have  been?  Circassians  are  as  common  as 
leaves.  Any  army  captain  might  have  bought 
them.  As  it  is,  they  are  sultanas.  Their  bread 
is  honey.  They  sleep  in  rose-leaves.  They  walk 
on  gold.  It  is  I  who  have  done  this  for  them. 
Is  it  not  just  that  I  should  clear  three  thousand 
pounds  ?" 

"No!"  declared  Mr.  Redding  vehemently. 
"They  were  human  beings  and  you  sold  them 
like  beasts !" 

The  other  allowed  a  shade  of  surprise  to 
escape  him.  Then  he  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  smiled  again. 

"Eh !"  he  exclaimed.  "We  do  not  smoke  the 
same  nargileh,  as  I  said.  But  we  are  brothers. 
And  do  you  know?  I  admired  your  Prophet  be 
fore  ;  but  since  I  have  been  to  India,  since  I  have 
seen  what  his  followers  are  able  to  do  there,  I 
reverence  him  still  more.  I  have  not  learned 
enough  about  him  yet.  And  I  still  wish  my 
Bibles.  But  I  am  afraid  to  take  them  here.  The 
police,  you  know!  You  have  people  in  Egypt, 
though,  have  you  not?" 

"Yes,"  assented  the  missionary. 

"Of  course!  You  have  them  everywhere!" 
The  slave-dealer  winked  knowingly.  "Well,  let 
me  have  a  letter  to  them.  It  will  be  safer  to 
get  my  books  there.  These  Turks  are  so  sus 
picious." 


FOR  THE  FAITH  257 

Mr.  Redding  did  not  like  the  wink.  But  he 
wrote  the  letter. 

IV 

It  was  more  than  two  years  before  the  man 
turned  up  the  third  time.  He  came  in  as  if  he 
had  been  absent  but  a  day,  looked  into  the  other 
room  to  make  sure  no  one  was  there,  and  sat 
down  close  to  the  desk.  He  was  evidently  in  a 
hurry. 

"I  tried  to  see  you  before,"  he  said  in  a  low 
voice.  "But — the  police!"  Then,  wiping  his 
face  with  a  huge  red  handkerchief,  he  went  on : 
"I  am  leaving  for  Tripoli,  and  I  want  you  to 
come  with  me!" 

Mr.  Redding  smiled.  Time  had  mellowed  the 
earlier  shrewdness  of  his  feeling.  To  him  now 
Yousouf  Bey  was  not  so  much  a  seeker  after 
Truth  as  a  property  of  the  picturesque,  a  foun 
tain  of  the  unexpected.  He  had  wondered  what 
new  surprise  might  be  in  store,  and  here  it  was ! 
Still,  there  was  always  room  for  the  miracle  of 
grace. 

"Did  you  see  our  friends  in  Egypt  ?"  he  asked, 
a  little  curious  as  to  what  success  another 
might  have  had. 

"Hoo-oo!"  exclaimed  the  Tripolitan,  in  his 
high  sing-song.  "Did  I  see  them?  I  showed 
your  letter.  At  sight  of  it  they  embraced  me. 


258  FOR  THE  FAITH 

There  was  no  door  which  your  name  would  not 
open  for  me.  We  became  as  brothers.  And  I 
carried  away  I  don't  know  how  many  great 
cases  of  Bibles." 

"Ah !  Then  you  took  Bibles  into  the  Sahara 
this  time  ?"  inquired  the  Reverend  Thomas,  with 
warming  interest. 

Yousouf  Bey  extended  his  arms  as  if  to  em 
brace  the  universe. 

"Fezzan,  Tibesti,  Kanem,  Bornu,  Bagirmi, 
Wadai,  Darfur,  Kordofan — they  are  full  of 
them!" 

"And  so  you  saw  our  friend?"  pursued  the 
missionary. 

"Yes,  I  saw  him.  He  is  still  selling  dates.  He 
has  done  very  well.  He  helped  me  with  the 
Bibles,  too.  He  knows  more  about  them  than  I, 
of  course." 

Mr.  Redding  smiled  encouragingly. 

"Well,  you  made  better  use  of  your  time  on 
this  journey  than  on  your  last.  Was  it  not  more 
satisfactory  ?" 

"Yes,  much!"  Yousouf  Bey  smiled  broadly. 
"And  now  I  shall  do  things  on  a  larger  scale.  I 
want  many  more  Bibles — many — many.  And" 
— he  drew  his  chair  still  nearer — "I  want  you  to 
come  with  me,  as  I  said.  We  will  go  to  Tripoli. 
From  there  we  will  ride  south.  We  will  visit  the 
Sheikh  of  the  Senussi  Arabs  on  the  way.  He 


FOR  THE  FAITH  259 

is  a  religious  man  like  yourself.  It  will  be  a 
profit  to  him,  it  will  be  a  profit  to  you.  Then  we 
will  go  on  and  see  our  friend  at  Sebkha." 

Mr.  Redding  shook  his  head,  smiling. 

"How  can  I,  a  poor  missionary,  make  such 
journeys  as  that  ?" 

The  Tripolitan  regarded  him  a  moment  with 
half-shut  eyes. 

"Poor!  You  who  fill  the  world  with  your 
people  and  build  khans  like  this!  You  say  so 
because  you  do  not  wish  to  come." 

Mr.  Redding  stopped  smiling. 

"I  say  so  because  it  is  true." 

Yousouf  Bey  clasped  his  hands  before  his  face 
and  drew  back  reproachfully. 

"My  soul!  Do  you  insult  me?  Are  we  not 
brothers?  Where  one  goes  cannot  two  go?" 

The  missionary  shook  his  head  again: 

"But,  even  then,  how  could  I  leave  my  work? 
If  I  go,  there  is  no  one  to  do  it." 

The  slave-dealer  laid  his  hand  on  the  other's 
sleeve : 

"Listen.  You  speak  of  your  work.  Think  of 
the  good  you  would  do  there.  No  one  has  ever 
gone  to  those  people  as  you  would  go.  Thou 
sands  would  receive  benefit  from  seeing  you, 
from  taking  your  books.  You  would  also  incur 
the  gratitude  of  your  own  people.  And  I  swear 
on  the  head  of  your  Prophet  and  of  mine  that 


260  FOR  THE  FAITH 

you  would  be  back  here  in  three  or  four 
months." 

Although  the  idea  was  too  fantastic  to  be 
seriously  entertained,  it  was  one  which  appealed 
to  the  imagination  of  Mr.  Redding.  And  he  was 
somewhat  at  a  loss  to  express  his  unwilling 
ness  to  embark  upon  such  an  adventure,  in 
terms  which  should  not  wound  his  would-be 
host. 

That  personage,  perceiving  the  mission 
ary's  uncertainty,  tightened  his  fingers  a  little 
on  the  latter's  arm  and  looked  close  into  his 
face. 

"You  and  I  understand  each  other,"  he 
uttered  slowly.  "We  are  not  children.  And 
you  of  the  West  do  not  bargain  when  you 
talk.  Tell  me:  will  you  come  with  me  or  will 
you  not?" 

A  curious  sensation  possessed  Mr.  Redding. 
He  had  no  more  idea  of  going  to  Tripoli  with 
this  slave-dealer  than  of  going  to  the  moon.  He 
wondered  what  the  man  meant  by  it,  and  his 
peculiar  insistence  was  irritating.  But  for  a 
moment,  under  the  glitter  of  those  motionless 
eyes,  a  strange  confusion  unsteadied  him.  It 
was  against  himself,  as  it  were,  and  with  an 
unaccustomed  weakness  of  inflection,  that  he 
answered : 

"I  am  sorry,  but  I  cannot  come." 


FOR  THE  FAITH  261 

For  a  moment  Yousouf  Bey  did  not  stir,  eye 
or  hand.  Then  he  made  a  gesture  of  impatience, 
rose,  and  began  to  walk  about  the  room. 

"Eh— you  know!"  he  said  at  length.  "But  I 
shall  have  to  go  without  my  Bibles.  I  would  be 
stopped.  You  could  take  as  many  as  you 
wanted,  though.  You  have  lost  a  great  oppor 
tunity."  He  looked  across  his  shoulder  at  the 
other,  who  remained  silent.  Then  he  walked 
up  and  down  once  more,  examining  the  various 
objects  in  the  room.  Finally  he  stopped  in  front 
of  the  desk.  "What  is  this  great  khan  for?"  he 
asked  abruptly.  "And  your  schools,  and  your 
hospitals,  and  your  men,  and  your  women  ?  You 
are  everywhere." 

The  blue  eyes  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Redding 
looked  quietly  into  the  black  ones  confronting 
them. 

"To  spread  the  Christian  religion,"  he  an 
swered  simply. 

The  slave-dealer  made  no  attempt  to  repress  a 
smile. 

"Excuse  my  laugh,"  he  said,  resuming  his 
tour  of  the  floor.  "But  if  that  is  true  you  throw 
a  great  deal  of  money  into  the  sea.  If  that  is 
true!  Do  those  carpet  men  across  the  street 
know  anything  about  the  Christian  religion,  for 
all  this  khan  of  yours  in  front  of  them  ?  If  that 
is  true!  I  could  count  on  my  fingers  all  the 


262  FOR  THE  FAITH 

Mohammedans  that  have  ever  become  Chris 
tians.  If  that  is  true !" 

"We  do  not  preach  by  the  sword,"  returned 
the  missionary  mildly. 

The  other  wheeled  and  stared  at  him.  Then 
he  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Eh — I  don't  understand!"  he  exclaimed. 
"People  are  as  God  made  them,  and  who  can 
change  them?  You  have  a  long  arm  and  a 
strong  arm.  But  either  it  is  broken  or  you  do 
not  know  how  to  use  it.  I  thought — well,  never 
mind  what  I  thought.  But  I  did  not  think  you 
were  children."  He  suddenly  stopped  and 
looked  at  his  watch.  "I  must  be  going,"  he  con 
tinued  hastily.  "I  am  sorry  you  will  not  come ! 
We  might  have  done  great  things,  I  don't  know 
whether  we  shall  meet  again.  But  you  will  hear 
of  me.  When  they  speak  of  Haji  Hassan,  you 
will  know  it  is  I.  May  your  nights  be  pleasant !" 

And  so,  with  a  rapid  salaam,  he  went  away. 

v 

No  later  than  the  next  winter  the  Reverend 
Thomas  Redding  sat  one  afternoon  at  his  desk, 
engaged  in  editorial  labours.  It  was  his  weekly 
office  to  issue  a  paper  for  the  benefit  of  native 
Protestants  and  those  interested  in  them.  This 
periodical,  appearing  in  several  languages,  did 
not  contain  intelligence  inaccessible  to  the  secu- 


FOR  THE  FAITH  263 

lar  press.  Its  facts  were  selected  and  set  forth 
with  a  view  to  the  edification  rather  than  to  the 
mere  information  of  its  readers.  But  to  a  cer 
tain  degree,  in  consequence  of  a  lack  of  re 
sources,  Mr.  Redding  was  even  dependent  upon 
the  secular  press.  Accordingly  he  found  in  the 
London  Times  a  strong  tower,  as  it  reached  him 
no  more  than  three  or  four  days  after  publica 
tion  and  not  infrequently  afforded  views  of  the 
political  situation  which  the  censorship  ex 
cluded  from  the  local  papers. 

On  the  present  occasion,  he  had  just  un 
wrapped  the  journal  which  I  have  mentioned. 
Glancing  over  the  staid  and  respectable  head 
lines  which  distinguish  that  weighty  sheet,  his 
eye  was  arrested  by  these  words : 

REVOLT  IN  TRIPOLI  CRUSHED 

Haji  Hassan  Himself  Killed  in  the  Front 

of  Battle 

"Haji  Hassan!"  repeated  Mr.  Redding  to  him 
self.  Involuntarily  he  looked  toward  the  door. 
And,  turning  back  to  his  paper,  he  wondered 
indistinctly  whether  revolters  wore  frock  coats. 

"Our  special  correspondent  in  Tripoli,"  he 
read,  "telegraphs  that  the  insurrection  which 
has  for  the  past  few  months  disturbed  the 
hinterland  of  Libia  has  we  hope  once  and  for  all 
been  stamped  out.  The  famous  rebel  Haji 


264  FOR  THE  FAITH 

Hassan,  inspired  by  his  successes  among  the 
southern  tribes  to  imagine  that  he  could  try 
conclusions  with  Italian  troops,  was  encoun 
tered  on  the  23d  inst.  at  Sidi-Bu-Agoll,  on  the 
caravan  route  to  Fezzan,  by  a  force  under  com 
mand  of  Lieutenant-General  Count  Mario  Mar- 
tinengo,  and  was  completely  routed.  By  a 
particular  piece  of  good  fortune  Haji  Hassan 
himself  was  shot  in  the  engagement,  which  he 
led  in  person  with  fanatical  bravery. 

"From  the  numerous  prisoners  something 
was  learned  of  the  character  and  antecedents  of 
the  late  Arab  leader.  As  the  march  of  civiliza 
tion  has  made  it  increasingly  difficult  for  an 
adventurer  of  imperial  ambitions  to  achieve  a 
throne,  our  readers  may  find  a  certain  romantic 
interest  in  the  history  of  the  dead  man.  He 
was  a  Tripolitan  by  birth,  of  mixed  Arab  and 
Turkish  blood.  During  many  years,  while 
ostensibly  carrying  on,  under  various  names,  a 
mercantile  and  slave  trade  throughout  central 
Africa,  he  was  employed  as  a  spy  by  the  Turkish 
and  Egyptian  governments.  Possessed,  how 
ever,  of  remarkable  powers  of  command,  and 
initiated  by  his  calling  into  the  secrets  of 
affairs,  his  influence  among  the  Saharan  tribes 
at  last  tempted  him  to  strike  for  a  throne.  Suc 
cessfully  usurping  the  powers  of  the  Sheikh  of 
the  Senussi,  whose  son-in-law  he  was,  he  ex- 


FOR  THE  FAITH  265 

tended  by  degrees  his  authority  over  the  entire 
region  north  and  east  of  Lake  Chad.  He  then 
proclaimed  himself  Sultan  and  prepared,  as  he 
hoped,  to  sweep  the  Italians  into  the  sea.  The 
main  objection  to  his  acceptance  by  the  Arabs 
had  been  his  taint  of  Turkish  blood.  Accord 
ingly  he  designed,  by  striking  a  sudden  and 
successful  blow  at  Tripoli,  to  win  the  uncertain 
to  his  banner  and  thus  to  secure  the  foundation 
of  a  new  Arab  empire  in  North  Africa.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  the  disaffection  had 
already  begun  to  spread  to  Tunis  and  the  Sudan. 

"The  plan  was  the  more  promising  as  no 
other  revolutionary  in  North  Africa  had  pos 
sessed  such  knowledge  of  the  world  or  had  been 
so  well  prepared  to  encounter  European  troops. 
Haji  Hassan's  followers  were  found  to  be  well 
armed,  rifles  and  ammunition  having  long  been 
smuggled  to  them  through  Fezzan  in  cases  of 
merchandise  and  even — we  are  told — of  Bibles. 
And  not  only  were  these  followers  well  armed. 
They  had  also  been  excellently  drilled  by  the 
late  'Sultan's'  confederate,  an  ex-artillery  officer 
from  the  War  College  at  Constantinople,  who 
was  educated  at  Woolwich. 

"These  circumstances  made  the  uprising  far 
more  dangerous  than  any  which  have  preceded 
it.  Only  the  excessive  confidence  of  the  rebel 
chieftain,  which  led  him  to  strike  too  soon,  made 


266  FOR  THE  FAITH 

possible  the  crushing  of  his  forces.  His  Majesty 
King  Victor  Emanuel  is  to  be  congratulated  on 
having  at  his  command  so  able  an  offiper  as 
General  Martinengo,  and  on  having  succeeded 
in  disposing  of  the  person  of  the  insurgent  at 
the  very  outset  of  the  campaign. 

"A  detailed  account  of  the  action  will  be 
found  in  our  news  columns." 


MILL  VALLEY 

Look  around  you  at  the  world.  Everywhere  you  will 
see  blood  flowing  in  streams,  and  as  merrily  as  cham 
pagne.  .  .  .  Civilization  develops  in  man  nothing  but  an 
added  capacity  for  receiving  impressions.  That  is  all. 
— Fedor  Dostoevsky:  LETTERS  FROM  THE  UNDERWORLD. 


I  SHALL  never  forget  the  night  I  got  there. 
The  train  went  no  farther  than  Nicomedia 
in  those  days,  and  it  took  so  long  that  you 
nearly  died  of  old  age  on  the  way.  But  when  the 
three  red  lights  on  the  tail  of  it  dwindled  into 
the  dark,  I  had  the  queerest  sense  of  having 
been  dropped  into  another  world.  It  was  the 
more  so  because  one  couldn't  see  an  earthly  thing 
— not  a  star,  not  even  the  Gulf  which  we  were  to 
cross.  I  only  heard  the  lapping  of  it,  close  by, 
when  the  rumble  of  the  train  died  out  of  the 
stillness.  That  and  the  crunch  of  steps  on  the 
sand  were  all  there  was  to  hear,  and  an  occa 
sional  word  I  didn't  catch.  The  men  could 
hardly  have  been  more  silent  if  our  lives  had 
depended  on  it.  I  had  no  idea  how  many  of 
them  there  were,  or  what  they  looked  like — 

267 


268  MILL  VALLEY 

much  less  where  they  were  taking  me.  They 
simply  hoisted  a  sail  and  put  off  into  the  night. 
I  would  have  sworn,  too,  that  there  was  no 
wind.  The  sail  filled,  however:  I  could  see  the 
swaying  pallor  of  it,  and  hear  the  ripple  under 
the  bow.  And  as  my  eyes  got  used  to  the  dark 
ness,  I  discovered  an  irregular  silhouette  in 
front  of  us,  and  a  floating  will-o'-the-wisp  of  a 
light.  The  silhouette  grew  taller  and  blacker 
till  the  boat  grounded  under  it.  Then,  by  the 
light  of  the  will-o'-the-wisp,  which  was  a  sput 
tering  oil  lantern  on  shore,  I  made  out  some 
immense  cypresses. 

You  have  no  idea  how  eerie  that  landing  was, 
in  a  waterside  cemetery  that  was  for  all  the 
world  like  Bocklin's  Island  of  Death.  The  men 
moved  like  shadows  about  their  Flying  Dutch 
man  of  a  boat,  and  their  lantern  just  brought 
out  the  ghostliness  of  gravestones  leaning  be 
tween  the  columns  of  the  cypresses.  And  I 
suddenly  became  aware  of  the  strangest  sound. 
I  had  no  idea  what  it  was  or  where  it  came 
from,  but  it  was  a  sort  of  low  moaning  that 
fairly  went  into  your  bones.  It  grew  louder 
when  we  started  on  again.  We  climbed  an  in 
visible  trail  where  branches  slashed  at  us  in  the 
dark,  and  all  kinds  of  sharp  and  sweet  and  queer 
smells  came  out  of  it  in  waves.  And  nightin 
gales  began  to  sing  like  mad  around  us,  and  off 


MILL  VALLEY  269 

in  the  distance  somewhere  jackals  were  bark 
ing,  and  under  it  all  that  low  moaning  went  on 
and  on  and  on.  And  at  last  we  came  out  into 
an  open  space  on  top  of  the  hill,  where  a  bonfire 
made  a  hole  in  the  black,  and  a  couple  of  naked 
figures  stood  redly  out  in  the  penumbra  of  it, 
with  a  ring  of  faces  flickering  around  them. 

II 

The  bonfire  business,  I  afterward  found  out, 
was  nothing  but  a  wrestling  match — they  had 
them  almost  every  night  on  the  me'idan — and 
the  moaning  came  from  the  mill-wheels  in  the 
valley.  They  were  picturesque  old  wooden 
affairs,  the  mills,  all  green  with  moss  and 
maidenhair  fern,  that  went  grinding  and  groan 
ing  on  forever  and  making  you  wonder  what  on 
earth  it  was  all  about.  They  kept  me  from  get 
ting  over  that  first  impression,  that  sense  of 
walking  through  all  kinds  of  things  without  see 
ing  them.  The  mills  belonged  to  a  village,  or 
rather  a  snarl  of  muddy  lanes,  at  the  top  of  a 
filbert  valley,  where  water  tumbled  down  to  the 
Gulf.  It  was  only  fifty  miles  away,  but  it 
might  have  been  five  hundred  and  fifty.  There 
was  none  of  the  contrast  with  Europe  that 
always  strikes  you  here.  It  was  Asia  pure  and 
simple — simple,  at  least,  if  not  pure !  Not  that 
there  was  any  lack  of  contrast,  transposed  as  it 


270  MILL  VALLEY 

were  to  a  different  key.  Most  of  the  villagers 
made  attar  of  rose,  and  they  had  heavenly  rose 
gardens,  separated  by  ruinous  mud  walls  and 
by  alleys  of  such  filth  and  such  smells  as  you 
can't  conceive.  No  one  ever  dreamed,  appar 
ently,  of  cleaning  a  street  or  repairing  a  house 
— unless  to  plaster  it  afresh  with  cow  dung.  Yet 
the  houses  were  wonderfully  neat  inside.  And  I 
caught  glimpses  in  them  of  rugs  and  tiles  and 
brasses  that  made  my  fingers  itch.  I  had  one  of 
the  few  wooden  houses  in  the  place,  a  huge 
tumble-down  old  konak  belonging  to  an  absentee 
rose-growing  Pasha.  It  stood  a  little  apart 
from  the  others,  in  a  big  garden.  And  it  leaked 
so  villainously  that  I  had  to  sit  under  an  um 
brella  every  time  there  was  a  shower.  But  the 
garden  and  the  view  made  up  for  that. 

What  struck  me  most,  though,  was  a  some 
thing  in  it  all  which  I  could  never  lay  my  finger 
on.  That's  the  wildest  part  of  the  Marmora, 
you  know,  for  all  their  railroad  on  the  north 
shore.  Some  day,  I  suppose,  when  international 
expresses  go  thundering  through  to  the  Per 
sian  Gulf,  it'll  be  all  factory  chimneys  and  sum 
mer  hotels,  like  the  rest  of  the  world.  But  now 
there's  nothing  worse  than  vineyards  and  to 
bacco  plantations.  On  our  side  there  were  not 
many  of  those.  The  hills  stood  up  pretty 
straight  out  of  the  water,  and  most  of  them 


MILL  VALLEY  271 

were  wooded  down  to  the  beach.  You  might 
think  it  virgin  forest,  if  you  didn't  know  that 
Roman  emperors  used  to  build  villas  there.  It 
seemed  incredible  that  a  country  inhabited  so 
long  should  show  so  few  signs  of  it.  The  people 
might  have  camped  in  a  clearing  overnight, 
and  the  woods  were  just  waiting  to  cover  up 
their  tracks.  But  the  wildness  was  not  the  good 
blank  unconscious  wildness  we  have  at  home. 
There  was  a  melancholy  about  it.  The  silence 
that  hung  over  the  place  was  really  a  little 
uncanny.  The  mills  only  cried  out,  in  that 
monotonous  minor  of  theirs. 

It  was  lucky  for  me  that  the  wireless  teleg 
raphy  I  sometimes  felt  about  me  allowed  the 
inhabitants  to  smoke  water-pipes  of  peace  with 
me,  in  a  little  vine-shaded  coffee-house  on  the 
me'idan.  And  I  couldn't  imagine  where  in  the 
world  they  had  all  picked  up  their  manners.  Of 
course  I  was  asked  a  good  many  questions,  and 
some  of  them  were  pretty  personal.  That  is  a 
part  of  the  Oriental  code.  It  was  amazing, 
though,  what  a  savoir  faire  they  had,  what  a 
sense  of  life  and  a  few  other  things.  I  couldn't 
make  them  out — taken  with  their  vile  village 
and  their  utter  ignorance  of  the  world  at  large. 
The  Miidir,  to  be  sure — as  it  were  the  mayor — 
was  something  of  an  exception.  He  was  a  grave, 
plump,  suave  personage  who  might  have  made 


272  MILL  VALLEY 

an  excellent  Cadi  of  tradition  if  he  had  never 
heard  of  Paris.  As  it  was,  I'm  afraid  he  took 
less  thought  for  his  peasants'  troubles  than  of 
the  extent  to  which  they  could  be  made  to  repay 
him  for  his  own.  I  quickly  found  out,  not  alto 
gether  to  my  joy,  that  he  wanted  to  practise  his 
French  as  much  as  I  wanted  to  practise  my 
Turkish.  On  such  occasions  as  I  had  the  honour 
of  squatting  at  his  little  round  board,  his  knowl 
edge  of  the  Occident  would  manifest  itself  in  an 
incredible  profusion  of  spoons.  The  first  time 
I  returned  his  hospitality  I  discovered  that  he 
was  not  averse  to  sampling  my  modest  cellar. 
I  also  discovered  that  he  didn't  care  to  be  found 
out.  These  people,  you  know,  are  tremendous 
prohibitionists. 

Then  there  was  the  Naib,  who  was  some  kind 
of  country  justice,  and  a  Chaoush,  an  officer  of 
police,  all  done  up  in  yellow  braid  and  brass 
whistles.  But  the  one  I  liked  best,  and  who 
interested  me  most,  was  the  Imam.  You  might 
not  have  been  inclined  to  take  him  seriously,  if 
you  saw  his  green  turban  and  his  rose-coloured 
robe.  A  more  kindly,  honest,  simple,  delightful 
old  gentleman,  however,  it  has  seldom  been  my 
fortune  to  meet.  He  was  a  Turk  of  the  old 
school,  without  an  atom  of  Europe  in  his  com 
position.  I  wish  they  were  not  getting  so  con 
foundedly  rare.  They  are  worth  a  dozen  of 


MILL  VALLEY  273 

these  new  people  who  pick  up  the  Roman  alpha 
bet  and  a  few  half-baked  ideas  of  what  we  are 
pleased  to  call  progress.  The  Imam  consented 
to  give  me  Turkish  lessons.  And  I  fancy  he 
taught  me  rather  more  than  was  in  the  bond. 
I  thought  all  I  had  to  do  was  to  sit  down  and 
look  pleasant  and  turn  him  inside  out  at  my 
leisure.  Whereas  more  than  once  I  had  a  feel 
ing,  after  it  was  over,  of  having  been  turned 
inside  out  myself.  It  makes  me  grin,  now, 
when  I  remember  what  a  confident  young 
ostrich  I  was.  I've  been  out  here  quite  a  while, 
now,  and  to  this  day  I'm  never  sure  of  my  man 
— how  that  Asiatic  head  of  his  will  work  in  any 
given  case.  My  sole  consolation  is  that  I'm  not 
the  only  one.  In  this  generation  I  presume 
there  must  have  been  as  many  as  five  Euro 
peans — and  four  of  those,  Englishmen — who 
didn't  more  or  less  make  jackasses  of  them 
selves  when  they  ran  up  against  Asia.  And  I 
imagine  it  took  them  rather  more  than  a  year 
to  arrive  even  at  that  negative  degree  of 
comprehension. 

For  that  matter,  I  don't  suppose  I  was  pre 
cisely  an  open  book  myself.  In  this  part  of  the 
world  they  haven't  got  our  passion  for  poking 
around  where  we  don't  belong.  Perhaps  they've 
had  more  time  to  find  out  how  little  there  is  in 
it.  And  for  a  mysteroious  individual  from  lands 


274  MILL  VALLEY 

beyond  the  sea,  whose  servant  can't  be  pre 
vented  from  bragging  of  the  splendour  in  which 
he  lives  at  Constantinople,  to  bury  himself  in  a 
remote  village  of  the  Marmora,  must  mean 
something  queer.  Does  one  give  up  a  yali  on 
the  Bosphorus  for  a  leaky  konak  in  Mill  Valley  ? 
And  are  there  no  teachers  of  Turkish  in  Stam- 
boul?  They  never  would  understand  anything 
so  simple  as  my  wanting  to  soak  in  their  air  and 
their  language.  I  believe  it  didn't  take  long  for 
the  Mutessarif  of  Nicomedia  to  find  out  I  was 
there,  and  for  him  to  ascertain  in  ways  best 
known  to  himself  what  I  was  up  to.  I  often  won 
dered  what  his  version  of  it  was.  But  he  let 
me  prowl  about  the  country  in  peace — though  I 
never  got  rid  of  a  feeling  that  unknown  eyes 
were  on  the  watch. 

Ill 

Everything,  then,  was  still  strange  to  me — 
the  faces,  the  costumes,  the  curious  implements, 
the  hairy  black  buffaloes,  the  fat-tailed  sheep 
with  their  dabs  of  red  dye,  the  solid-wheeled 
carts  that  lamented  more  loudly,  if  less  con 
tinuously,  than  the  water  wheels,  the  piratish 
looking  caravels  beating  up  and  down  the  Gulf 
under  a  balloon  of  a  mainsail.  Once  in  a  while 
I  chartered  one  of  them,  to  go  fishing  or  explor 
ing.  All  of  which  must  have  been  highly  in- 


MILL  VALLEY  275 

comprehensible  to  my  astonished  neighbours. 
I  believe  my  man  had  to  invent  some  legend  of 
a  doctor  and  a  cure  to  account  for  so  eccentric  a 
master.  It  was  only  when  I  came  more  and 
more  to  spend  my  days  among  the  cypresses  on 
the  edge  of  the  water  that  I  became  less  an  ob 
ject  of  suspicion.  For  while  a  Turk  is  little  of  a 
sportsman  and  less  of  a  mere  aimless  sightseer, 
he  likes  nothing  better  than  sitting  philosoph 
ically  under  the  greenwood  tree. 

My  greenwood  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  ceme 
tery — the  one  where  I  landed  the  night  I 
arrived.  Heaven  knows  how  long  it  had  been 
there.  The  cypresses  were  immensely  tall  and 
thick  and  dark.  And  the  stones  under  them, 
with  their  carved  turbans  and  arabesques,  and 
their  holes  and  rain-hollows  for  restless  or 
thirsty  ghosts,  were  all  gray  and  lichened  with 
time,  and  pitched  every  which  way  between  the 
coiling  roots.  You  may  think  it  a  queer  kind  of 
place  to  sit  around  in;  but  the  villagers  didn't, 
and  it  took  my  fancy  enormously.  I  don't  know 
— there  was  something  so  still  and  old  about  it, 
and  the  spring  had  such  a  look  between  the 
black  trees.  It  wasn't  quite  still,  either,  for 
that  strange  low  minor  of  the  water  wheels 
was  always  in  your  ears.  It  ran  on  and  on, 
like  the  sound  of  the  quiet  and  the  sunshine 
and  the  cypresses  and  the  ancient  stones. 


276  MILL  VALLEY 

And  it  made  all  sorts  of  things  go  through  your 
head.  I  presume  that  first  impression  had 
something  to  do  with  it.  You  wondered  whether 
the  trees  would  have  lived  so  long  if  so  many 
dead  people  had  not  lain  among  their  roots. 
You  wondered — I  don't  know  what  you  didn't 
wonder. 

As  the  weather  grew  warm  I  used  to  pack  a 
hammock  and  reading  and  writing  and  cooking 
things  on  a  donkey,  nearly  every  day,  and  drop 
down  through  the  filberts  to  my  cypresses.  I 
used  to  swim  there,  too — and  cut  myself  out 
rageously  on  the  stones  and  sea-urchins  of  the 
beach.  What  I  did  most,  though,  was  simply  to 
loll  in  the  shade  and  watch  the  world  go  by. 
Not  that  much  of  it  does  go  by  the  Gulf  of 
Nicomedia.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  a  sail  every 
now  and  then  you  would  have  supposed  that 
people  had  forgotten  all  about  that  little  blue 
pocket  of  a  firth,  leading  nowhere  between  its 
antique  hills.  Then  there  were  two  or  three 
trains  a  d^y,  whose  black  you  could  just  make 
out,  crawling  through  the  green  of  the  opposite 
shore.  And  there  was  a  steamer  a  day,  each 
way,  that  it  was  as  much  as  your  life  was  worth 
to  set  foot  ^n.  You  wouldn't  think  so,  though, 
to  see  the  people  who  packed  the  decks.  It  was 
a  miracle  where  so  many  of  them  came  from 
and  went  to,  I  often  used  to  go  down  to  the 


MILL  VALLEY  277 

landing  to  look  at  them,  with  all  their  different 
colours  and  types  and  languages.  They  gave 
one  such  an  idea  of  the  extraordinary  wreckage 
that  has  been  left  on  the  shores  of  that  old 
Greek  sea.  Only  you  don't  get  it  as  you  do 
here,  where  races  and  creeds  march  past  you 
and  you  stand  by  and  admire.  There  was  some 
thing  more  secret  and  ancient  about  it — more 
like  Homer  and  the  Bible  and  the  Arabian 
Nights. 

One  afternoon  as  I  sat  under  the  cypresses 
what  should  go  by  but  a  caravan !  I  had  never 
seen  one  before.  First  came  a  man  on  a  donkey, 
with  a  couple  of  saddle  bags  to  make  your 
mouth  water,  and  then  a  long  string  of  camels 
roped  together  in  groups  like  barges  in  a  tow. 
What  an  air  they  had — the  fantastic  tawny  line 
of  them  swinging  against  the  blue  of  the  Gulf ! 
And  how  softly  they  padded  along  the  shingle, 
with  their  mysterious  bales  and  the  picturesque 
ruffians  in  charge  of  them !  They  passed  with 
out  so  much  as  a  turn  of  the  eye,  my  Wise  Men 
of  the  East,  and  disappeared  behind  the  point 
as  silently  as  they  came.  It  gave  me  the 
strangest  sensation.  I  had  felt  something  of 
the  same  before.  I  could  scarcely  help  it,  look 
ing  out  between  those  tragic  trees  at  the  white 
strip  of  beach  and  the  blue  strip  of  sea  and  the 
green  strip  of  hills  that  were  so  much  like  other 


278  MILL  VALLEY 

hills  and  seas  and  beaches  and  yet  so  different. 
But  there  had  never  come  to  me  before  quite 
such  a  sense  of  the  strangeness  of  this  world 
where  so  many  things  had  been  buried  from  the 
time  of  Jason  and  the  Argo — of  this  world  of 
which  I  knew  nothing  and  to  which  I  was 
nothing. 

IV 

You  may  believe  that  I  was  delighted  when  I 
went  back  to  the  village  that  night  and  found  it 
full  of  camels.  The  air  was  sizzling  with  bon 
fires  and  kebabs — you  know  those  bits  of  lamb 
they  broil  on  a  long  wooden  spit  ? — and  strange 
faces  were  at  every  corner.  They  filled  the 
coffee-house,  too,  when  I  finally  got  there.  By 
that  time  it  was  too  dark  to  stare  as  hard  as  I 
would  have  liked.  But  perhaps  the  scene  was 
all  the  more  picturesque  for  the  shadowy  figures 
scattered  under  the  vine  in  the  dusk,  and  the 
bubble  of  nargilehs  filling  the  intervals  of  talk. 
A  feature  would  come  saliently  out  here  and 
there  in  the  red  of  a  cigarette — a  shining  eye, 
a  hawk  nose,  a  bronzed  cheek-bone.  And  out 
on  the  me'idan  were  groups  around  fires,  with 
their  little  pipes  that  have  all  the  trouble  of  the 
East  in  them,  and  their  little  tomtoms  of  such 
inimitable  rhythms. 

I  found  my  friends  established  as  usual  in  the 


MILL  VALLEY  279 

seat  of  honour — an  old  sofa  in  the  corner  of  the 
cafe — and  as  usual  they  made  place  for  me 
amongst  them.  When  the  ceremony  of  their 
welcome  subsided,  the  Mudir  took  occasion  to 
whisper  to  me  that  the  leader  of  the  caravan, 
an  excellent  fellow  who  had  stopped  there  be 
fore,  was  telling  stories.  I  then  recognized,  in 
the  light  of  a  lamp,  the  man  I  had  seen  that 
afternoon.  He  sat  on  a  stool  in  front  of  the 
divan  of  honour,  and  behind  him  were  crowded 
all  the  other  stools  and  mats  in  the  place. 
Although  he  had  not  deigned,  before,  to  turn 
his  head  toward  me,  he  now  testified  by  the 
depth  of  his  salaam  to  the  honour  he  felt  in 
such  an  addition  to  his  circle.  He  was  a 
curiously  handsome  chap,  burnt  and  bearded, 
with  the  high-hung  jaw  of  his  people,  the 
arched  brow,  the  almost  Roman  nose.  And 
shaky  as  I  still  was  in  the  language,  he  didn't 
leave  me  long  to  wonder  why  he  was  the  centre 
of  the  circle.  He  was  a  born  raconteur — one  of 
those  story-tellers  who  in  the  East  still  carry 
on  the  tradition  of  the  troubadours.  Not  that 
he  sang  to  us,  or  recited  poetry — although  the 
Imam  told  me  with  pride  that  the  man  was  a 
dictionary  of  the  Persian  poets.  But  he  went 
on  with  a  story  he  had  begun  before  my  en 
trance.  It  was  one  of  those  endless  old  Eastern 
tales  that  are  such  a  charming  mixture  of  ser- 


280  MILL  VALLEY 

pent  wisdom  and  childish  naivete.  And  he  told 
it  with  a  vividness  of  gesture  and  inflection  that 
you  never  get  from  print. 

Well,  you  can  imagine !  I  always  had  a  fancy 
for  that  sort  of  thing,  but  it's  so  deuced  hard  to 
get  at — at  least,  for  people  like  us.  And  after 
that  queer  turn  the  first  sight  of  the  caravan 
gave  me,  down  by  the  water,  it  made  me  feel 
as  if  I  were  really  beginning  to  lay  my  hand  on 
things  at  last.  So  I  was  disappointed  enough 
when  at  the  end  of  the  story  the  party  began  to 
break  up.  Upon  my  signifying  as  much  to  my 
neighbour  the  Miidir,  however,  he  said  that 
nothing  would  be  easier  than  to  summon  the 
man  to  a  private  session.  If  I  would  do  him  the 

honour  to  come  to  the  konak I  was  tickled 

enough  to  take  up  with  the  idea,  provided  the 
meeting  should  take  place  at  my  house  instead. 
I  knew  there  would  be  bakshish,  which  I  didn't 
like  to  put  the  Mudir  in  for,  after  all  he  had 
done.  Moreover,  I  had  a  whim  to  get  the  camel- 
driver  under  my  own  roof — by  way  of  nailing 
the  East,  so  to  speak! 

V 

So  the  upshot  of  the  business  was  that  we 
made  a  night  of  it.  Oh,  I  don't  mean  any  of 
your  wild  and  woolly  ones.  To  be  sure,  we  did 
wet  things  down  a  trifle  more  than  is  the  cus- 


MILL  VALLEY  281 

torn  of  the  country.  There  happened  to  be  a 
decanter  on  the  table,  which  the  camel-driver 
looked  at  as  if  he  wouldn't  mind  knowing  what 
it  contained;  and  being  a  bit  awkward  at  first, 
I  knew  no  better  than  to  trot  it  out.  The 
Mudir,  to  whom  of  course  I  offered  it  first, 
wouldn't  have  any.  I  suppose  he  had  his  repu 
tation  to  keep  up  before  an  inferior.  I  was 
rather  surprised,  all  the  same,  for  it  was  plain 
enough  that  the  camel-driver  was  by  no  means 
the  kind  of  man  the  name  implies,  and  a  little 
Greek  wine  wouldn't  hurt  a  baby.  Moreover, 
I  had  heard  of  this  raki  of  theirs,  which  is  so 
much  fire-water,  and  I  didn't  take  their  tem 
perance  very  seriously.  As  for  the  camel-driver, 
he  was  rather  amusing. 

"You  tempt  me  to  my  death!"  he  laughed, 
taking  the  glass  I  poured  out  for  him.  "Do 
you  know  that  my  men  would  kill  me  if  they 
saw  me  now?  These  country  people  have  not 
the  ideas  of  the  effendi  and  myself.  They  follow 
blindly  the  Prophet,  not  realizing  how  many 
rooms  there  are  in  the  house  of  a  wise  man. 
They  found  out  that  I  had  been  affording  oppor 
tunity  for  the  forgiveness  of  God,  and  they 
took  it  quite  seriously.  They  threatened  to  kill 
me  if  I  did  not  make  a  public  confession.  And 
I  had  to  do  it,  to  please  them.  On  the  next 
Friday  I  made  a  solemn  confession  of  my  sins 


282  MILL  VALLEY 

in  mosque,  and  swore  never  to  smell  another 
drop." 

At  this  I  didn't  know  just  what  to  do.  I 
looked  at  the  Miidir ,  and  the  Miidir  looked  at 
the  camel-driver.  The  latter,  however,  waved 
his  hand  with  a  smile  of  goodfellowship. 

"There  is  no  harm  now,"  he  said.  "We  break 
caravan  to-morrow  at  Nicomedia.  Moreover,  I 
do  not  drink  saying  it  is  right.  I  should  blas 
pheme  God,  who  has  commanded  me  not  to 
drink.  But  I  acknowledge  that  I  sin.  Great  be 
the  name  of  God !"  With  which  he  tipped  the 
glass  into  his  mouth.  "My  soul!"  he  exclaimed. 
"That  is  better  than  a  cucumber  in  August !" 

These  people  are  democratic,  you  know,  to  a 
degree  of  which  we  haven't  an  idea — for  all 
our  declaration  of  independence.  Yet  there 
are  certain  invisible  lines  which  are  sure  to  trip 
a  foreigner  up  and  which  made  me  mighty  un 
certain  what  to  do  with  the  governor  of  a 
mudirlik  and  the  leader  of  a  caravan.  But  the 
latter  proceeded  to  look  out  for  that.  Such  a 
jolly  good  fellow  you  never  saw  in  your  life, 
with  his  stories,  and  the  way  he  had  with  him, 
and  the  things  he  had  been  up  to.  It  turned 
out  that  he  knew  western  Asia  a  good  deal 
better  than  I  know  western  Europe.  Tabriz, 
Tashkend,  Samarkand,  Cabul,  to  say  nothing 
of  Mecca  and  Cairo  and  Tripoli — such  names 


MILL  VALLEY  283 

dropped  from  him  as  Liverpool  and  Marseilles 
might  from  me.  Where  camel  goes  he  had 
been,  and  for  him  Asia  Minor  was  no  more  than 
a  sort  of  ironic  tongue  stuck  out  at  Europe  by 
the  huge  continent  behind.  It  gave  me  my 
first  inkling  of  how  this  empire  is  tied  up.  It 
seems  to  hang  so  loosely  together,  without  the 
rails  and  wires  that  put  Sitka  and  St.  Augustine 
in  easier  reach  of  each  other  than  Constantinople 
and  Bagdad.  I  began  to  learn  then  that  wires 
and  rails  are  not  everything — that  there  are 
stronger  nets  than  those.  Altogether  it  was  a 
momentous  occasion.  To  sit  there  in  that  queer 
old  house,  in  a  wild  hill  village  of  the  Marmora, 
and  speak  familiarly  with  that  camel-driver 
who  carried  the  secrets  of  Asia  in  his  pocket — 
it  brought  me  nearer  than  I  had  ever  dreamed 
to  that  life  which  was  always  so  tantalizing  me 
by  my  inability  to  get  at  it. 

VI 

When  the  man  finally  withdrew,  and  the 
Mudir  after  him,  I  was  in  no  mood  to  go  to  bed. 
They  had  opened  to  me  their  ancient  world, 
with  all  its  poetry  and  mystery,  and  I  did  not 
want  to  lose  it  again.  I  could  see  it  stretching 
dimly  beyond  the  windows  where  the  water 
wheels  went  moaning  under  the  moon.  I  went 
out  into  it.  The  night  was — you  have  no  idea 


284  MILL  VALLEY 

what  those  nights  could  be.  They  had  such  a 
way  of  swallowing  up  the  squalidness  of  things, 
and  bringing  out  all  their  melancholy  magic. 
The  rose  season  was  at  its  height,  and  the  air 
was  one  perfume  from  the  hidden  gardens. 
Then  the  nightingales  were  at  that  heart 
breaking  music  of  theirs.  And  the  moon!  It 
wasn't  one  of  those  glaring  round  things,  like  a 
coachman's  button  or  a  butcher's  boy  with  the 
mumps,  by  which  young  ladies  are  commonly 
put  into  spasms;  but  it  was  an  old  wasted  one, 
with  such  a  light ! 

It  was  all  the  more  extraordinary  because  not 
a  creature  was  about — except  a  man  who  lay 
asleep  on  the  ground,  not  far  from  the  door. 
Apparently  they  dropped  off  wherever  they 
happened  to  be,  down  there,  and  I  used  to  envy 
them  for  it.  I  stood  still  for  a  while,  in  the 
shadow  of  the  house,  taking  it  all  in.  Don't 
you  know,  it  happens  once  in  a  while  that  you 
have  a  mood,  and  that  your  surroundings  come 
up  to  it?  It  doesn't  happen  very  often,  either 
— at  least,  to  workaday  people  like  us.  So  I 
stood  there,  looking  and  listening  and  breathing. 
And  when  I  saw  the  edge  of  the  shadow  of  the 
house  crumple  up  at  one  place,  without  any 
visible  cause,  and  creep  out  into  the  moonlight, 
I — I  only  looked  at  it.  Nothing  had  any  visible 
cause  in  that  strange  world  of  mine,  and  I 


MILL  VALLEY  285 

watched  the  slowly  lengthening  finger  of 
shadow  with  the  passivity  of  a  man  who  has 
seen  too  many  wonders  to  wonder  any  more. 
But  then  I  made  out  a  darker  darkness  winding 
back  toward  the  house.  And — I  don't  know 
— I  thought  of  the  man  on  the  ground.  I 
looked  at  him. 

It  was  my  camel-driver,  dead  as  Darius,  with 
the  blood  running  out  of  a  hole  in  his  back  like 
water  out  of  a  spout.  For  the  moment  I  was 
still  too  far  away  from  every  day  to  be  startled, 
or  even  very  much  surprised.  It  was  only  a 
part  of  that  mysterious  world,  with  its  mys 
terious  people  and  mysterious  ways  that  I  never 
could  understand.  What  was  he  doing  there 
dead,  who  had  been  so  full  of  life  a  little  while 
before?  Was  it  one  of  his  jokes?  The  night 
was  the  most  enchanting  you  could  imagine,  the 
air  was  heady  with  the  breath  of  rose-gardens, 
the  nightingales  were  singing  in  the  trees 
(down  in  the  valley  I  heard,  low,  low,  the  weary 
water-wheels),  and  here  was  the  prince  of 
story-tellers  with  his  tongue  stopped  forever, 
and  the  blood  of  him  making  a  snaky  black  trail 
across  the  moonlight.  .  .  . 

VII 

What  happened  next?  My  dear  fellow,  you 
remind  me  of  these  kids  who  will  never  let  you 


286  MILL  VALLEY 

finish  their  story!  Nothing  happened  next. 
That  was  the  beauty  of  it.  I  guess  I  got  one 
pretty  good  case  of  the  jim-jams  after  a  while, 
and  when  I  got  through  wondering  whether  I 
was  going  to  be  elected  next,  I  began  to  wonder 
whether  they  wouldn't  think  I'd  done  it.  Of 
course,  I  had  done  it,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and 
that  didn't  tend  to  composure  of  mind.  Neither 
did  my  speculation  as  to  what  the  Mudir  might 
or  might  not  have  noticed  when  he  left  me  that 
evening.  But,  if  you  will  believe  it,  nobody  ever 
lifted  a  finger.  The  next  morning  the  caravan 
was  gone  and  apparently  everything  was  the 
same  as  before.  If  anything,  they  were  more 
decent  than  before.  That  was  the  worst  of  it. 
I  don't  believe  I'd  have  minded  so  much  if  they'd 
stoned  me  and  ridden  me  out  on  a  rail  and  set 
the  Government  after  me  and  raised  the  devil 
generally.  I  should  at  least  have  felt  less  at  sea. 

As  it  was Hello,  there's  Carmignani !  Let's 

take  him  over  to  Tokatlian's. 


THE  REGICIDE 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  sole  reward  of  a  shining  life 
is  ofttimes  bitterness. 

— Richard  Matthews  Hallett:  THE  LADY  AFT. 

THE  Atlantic,  after  all,  is  nothing  but  an 
American  lake,  and  one  passage  is  like 
another.  You  could  almost  make  up  the 
sailing  list  before  going  on  board.  There  will 
be  the  person  on  his  first  trip,  who  speaks  of 
London  and  the  Alps  as  if  they  were  Lhasa  and 
the  Himalayas.  There  will  be  the  person  on  his 
sixty-ninth  trip — that  kind  of  a  person  on  his 
sixty-ninth  trip  who  finds  occasion  to  apprise 
you  of  that  fact  when  you  give  your  name  to  the 
bath  steward.  There  will  be  the  lady  who  sings. 
There  will  be  the  gentleman  who  plays.  There 
will  be  the  individual  who  organizes  the  concert. 
There  will  be  the  college  professor  leading  six 
teen  young  ladies  by  the  nose.  There  will  be 
the  distracting  widow,  accompanied  oftener 
than  not  by  an  infant  ruffian  whom  she  confides 
to  you  to  be  the  image  of  his  poor  father. 
There  will  be  the  mysterious  personage  who 
speaks  to  no  one  and  who  is  variously  referred 

«87 


288  THE  REGICIDE 

to  as  Hall  Caine,  Harry  Lauder,  or  J.  P.  Morgan. 
And  after  that,  to  make  up  the  chorus  of  the 
piece,  there  will  be  job  lots  of  priests,  drum 
mers,  students,  card  sharps,  detached  ladies,  in 
valids,  bridal  couples,  and  nice-looking  people 
you  don't  get  a  chance  to  meet. 

And  yet,  after  all,  one  passage  never  is  like 
another.  Consider,  for  instance,  the  difference 
between  the  voyages  east  and  west.  The  card 
sharps,  the  distracting  widow,  and  the  person 
on  his  sixty-ninth  trip,  are  the  only  members  of 
the  cast  who  do  not  outwardly  and  visibly 
undergo,  between  the  two,  some  manner  of 
change.  Then  you  can  never  exhaust  the  com 
binations  and  permutations  possible  between 
the  various  groups.  And  with  the  strange  con 
trasts  that  meet  your  eye,  the  strange  tales  that 
sooner  or  later  reach  your  ear,  the  strange  sense 
of  the  sea's  power  to  put  men  into  immediate 
relation  with  one  another,  it  always  comes  to 
you  with  a  fresh  shock — at  least  it  always 
comes  to  me — that  the  most  unpromising  peo 
ple  are  often  the  ones  who  have  the  most  sur 
prising  adventures.  For  life  has  a  trick  of 
being  true  to  itself  even  in  the  little  rocking 
world  of  a  ship. 

All  of  which  is  a  more  or  less  inconsequent 
preamble  to  my  acquaintance  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Alonzo  Blakemore.  I  first  saw  them  at  dinner 


THE  REGICIDE  289 

the  night  we  left  Naples.  I  must  confess,  how 
ever,  that  I  paid  but  a  mediocre  degree  of  atten 
tion  to  the  severe  and  gloomy  dame  upon  my 
right.  I  have  skimmed  about  a  bit  in  my  day 
and  I  have  my  generalizations.  They  are  not  so 
narrow  as  they  might  be,  thank  goodness;  but 
neither  are  they  so  wide  as  to  claim  that  every 
human  being  is  interesting.  I  have  known  too 
many  who  were  not.  I  therefore  took  as  much 
credit  to  myself  as  if  I  had  calculated  the 
transit  of  Venus  when  Mrs.  Blakemore  under 
took  to  convince  a  scandalized  steward  that  she 
required  tea  with  her  fish.  It  went  with  her 
perennial  black  dress  and  its — to  call  them 
polka  dots  would  connote  more  liveliness  than 
their  wearer  diffused.  Singularly  destitute  even 
of  the  maturer  airs  and  graces  of  femininity, 
she  kept  a  watch  upon  her  lips  that  would  have 
discouraged  a  more  pertinacious  companion 
than  myself.  Moreover  nature  had  found  means 
to  enhance  a  certain  martial  deportment  which 
was  hers.  You  could  not  affirm  that  she  was 
bearded  like  the  pard,  but  you  wouldn't  be  will- 
ling  to  answer  for  her  in  ten  years.  Neverthe 
less  I  might  as  well  say  here  and  now  that  as 
custom  facilitated  our  intercourse,  she  rather 
came  to  remind  me  of  Lamb's  Gentle  Giantess 
— except,  of  course,  that  she  was  neither  a 
giantess  nor  gentle. 


290  THE  REGICIDE 

A  curious  little  passage  with  her  husband 
gave  me  the  first  hint  of  the  sort.  I  happened 
one  noon  to  see  her  examining  with  that  gentle 
man  the  chart  of  our  daily  run,  when  all  of  a 
sudden  she  executed  the  most  extraordinary 
little  caper  and  gave  vent  to  the  most  extraor 
dinary  little  squeal.  It  was  over  so  quickly  that 
I  could  not  be  quite  sure  of  my  senses.  I  would 
as  soon  have  expected  such  a  manoeuvre  from 
the  Statue  of  Liberty.  But  it  made  me  think, 
for  some  absurd  reason,  of  a  sea  monster  I  had 
watched  a  few  days  before  in  the  Aquarium  at 
Naples.  This  was  a  fearsome-looking  creature 
with  frazzles  waving  from  it  and  a  general  air 
of  intending  to  make  mincemeat  out  of  you. 
And  then  a  cavity  opened  somewhere  in  its 
grisly  person  and  revealed  an  interior  of  a  most 
innocent  baby  pink.  Well,  I  did  not  arrive 
at  any  great  intimacy  with  Mrs.  Blakemore, 
and  I  am  unable  to  account  for  the  distinctness 
of  an  impression  which  she  did  so  little  to  con 
firm;  but  I  never  could  quite  rid  myself  of  an 
idea  that  this  singular  woman  was  lined  with 
pink. 

It  may  be  that  I  saw  Mrs.  Blakemore's  case 
as  a  reflection  of  her  husband.  He  was  a  rosy 
and  genial  little  gentleman  who  affected  a  red 
necktie.  He  also  used  don't  in  the  third  per 
son  singular  and  looked  askance  upon  the 


THE  REGICIDE  291 

"I-talians"  crowding  the  forward  deck.  But 
that  didn't  prevent  him  from  being  full  of  kind 
offices  and  a  certain  dry  humour.  Indeed  he 
only  lacked  a  degree  of  flamboyancy  to  become 
what  is  known  as  the  life  of  the  ship.  As  it 
was,  the  nicest  thing  about  him  was  the  way  he 
treated  his  wife.  He  carried  her  off  as  if  she'd 
been  the  Queen  of  Sheba — although  I  enter 
tained  my  suspicions  as  to  who  had  done  the 
carrying  off.  I  will  not  say,  however,  that  I 
would  have  appreciated  the  subtleties  of  the 
case  to  such  a  degree  if  Blakemore  had  not  been 
so  polite  about  my  stories.  I  was  on  my  way 
home  from  Constantinople,  which  few  people  on 
board  had  seen  at  all,  much  less  looked  at  for 
five  years,  and  I  had  that  particular  onion  patch 
to  myself.  But  Blakemore  seemed  to  take  more 
than  a  mere  polite  interest  in  my  reminiscences. 
Even  Mrs.  Blakemore  appeared  to  take  a  cue 
from  him  in  our  somewhat  onesided  councils. 
About  Europe  in  general  it  was  plain  enough 
that  she  knew  or  cared  no  more  than  about 
Patagonia.  She  had  apparently  gone  there  for 
the  pure  pleasure  of  going  home.  But  she 
would  occasionally  ask  me,  a  propos  de  bottes, 
or  perhaps  by  way  of  steering  the  conver 
sation  into  fields  where  she  knew  me  to  be 
most  eloquent,  how  hot  it  was  on  the  Bos- 
phorus,  and  what  the  people  wore,  and  whether 


292  THE  REGICIDE 

there  was  a  king,  and  if  I  saw  many  Ameri 
cans. 

For  my  own  part,  I  dispensed  with  questions. 
In  the  first  place,  asking  for  information  has 
always  seemed  to  me  a  crude  and  unreliable 
way  of  getting  it.  Then,  with  regard  to  the 
Blakemores,  I  felt  that  after  the  small  affair  of 
the  chart  there  was  no  information  worth  get 
ting.  I  had  met  them  a  hundred  times  in  New 
England  villages.  I  had  seen  them  a  hundred 
times  hurrying  through  foreign  streets  with 
grave  unseeing  eyes.  A  hundred  times  I  had 
discoursed  with  them  in  hotel  drawing-rooms, 
at  compartment  windows,  on  steamer  decks, 
concerning  the  superlative  beauty  of  American 
as  compared  to  all  other  human  institutions. 
There  was  nothing  about  them  I  didn't  know 
beforehand.  So,  but  for  an  accident  of  the 
dinner  table,  my  smugness  might  never  have 
been  rebuked.  I  might  never  have  heard,  that 
is,  one  of  the  drollest  little  stories  I  ever  picked 
up  at  sea. 

It  came  out  through  the  agency  of  the  col 
lege  professor,  a  gentleman  for  whom  life  was 
a  large  and  unruly  classroom  and  the  sole 
method  of  establishing  relations  therewith  the 
Socratic.  Having  doubtless  learned  the  story  of 
everybody  else's  life,  he  set  about  obtaining 
that  of  Mrs.  Blakemore,  to  which  end  he  in- 


THE  REGICIDE  293 

quired  how  long  she  had  been  over.  I  didn't 
exactly  prick  up  my  ears  when  she  said  eight 
months.  It  only  made  her  more  typical  to  have 
spent  eight  months  in  Europe  without  any  of  it 
rubbing  off  on  her.  I  did  prick  up  my  ears 
though  when  it  came  out  that  the  eight  months 
had  been  spent  not  in  Europe  at  all,  but  in  Meso 
potamia.  In  fact  I  felt  a  little  irritated  about  it 
— as  you  do  when  you  get  very  chummy  with  a 
man  on  the  way  over  and  then  see  him  drive 
away  from  the  pier  in  a  Black  Maria.  What  on 
earth  had  these  good  people  been  doing  in 
Mesopotamia,  of  all  places,  where  Fve  always 
been  dying  to  go — and  at  a  season  when  every 
body  who  can  gets  out  of  it  ?  The  question  evi 
dently  agitated  other  minds,  for  the  professor 
began  speaking  of  Egypt  and  the  Holy  Land. 
It  appeared  that  he  sometimes  varied  the  mo 
notony  of  taking  young  ladies  abroad  in  the 
summer  by  escorting  old  ones  in  the  winter. 

"Well,  we  did  pass  Egypt  on  our  way  south," 
I  heard  Blakemore  say,  "but  we  spent  most  of 
our  time  in  Basra." 

Everybody  looked  blankly  at  everybody  else, 
wondering  where  in  the  world  Basra  might  be 
— everybody,  that  is,  except  the  narrator  of  this 
tale,  who  had  not  lived  in  Constantinople  for 
five  years  for  nothing. 

"Why,  that's  the  place  at  the  head  of  the  Per- 


294  THE  REGICIDE 

sian  Gulf,  isn't  it?"  I  asked,  wondering  as  I 
stirred  my  coffee  whether  missionaries  and  red 
neckties  went  together.  "Did  you  happen  to 
run  across  the  consul  of  ours  who's  been  kicking 
up  such  a  row  down  there  ?" 

"Oh,  I  believe  I  saw  something  about  it  in  the 
Paris  Herald"  said  a  lady  across  the  table. 
"Didn't  he  kill  a  king,  or  something  ?" 

"There's  no  telling  what  he  did,"  I  answered. 
"The  people  who  sit  in  consulates,  under  our 
admirable  system,  are  about  as  queer  as  those 
who  visit  them — especially  at  those  out-of-the- 
way  posts,  that  are  generally  filled  by  gentle 
men  into  whose  antecedents  the  Department 
does  not  feel  it  necessary  to  inquire  very  deeply. 
The  Turkish  papers  were  quite  amusing  about 
this  particular  ornament  of  our  public  service 
— the  White  Peril,  and  so  on — but  they  didn't 
make  it  very  clear  what  he  was  up  to  when  he 
tried  to  pot  some  local  royalty.  Perhaps  he  was 
on  the  order  of  the  capitalists  we  hear  so  much 
about  nowadays,  who  hunt  in  pairs  and  con 
trive  to  wring  concessions  out  of  dusky  poten 
tates  with  the  help  of  a  dazzling  pair  of  shoul 
ders!  Anyway  it  raised  all  kinds  of  a  fuss. 
Washington  has  had  to  apologize  to  everybody 
from  the  Sultan  to  King  Edward,  and  gunboats 
have  been  skipping  about  like  spring  lambs,  and 
our  worthy  consul  has  gone  home  very  much 


THE  REGICIDE  295 

persona  non  grata.  You  probably  know  more 
about  it  than  I  do,  Blakemore." 

The  minute  I  turned  to  him  I  saw  that  he  did. 
He  was  looking  down  at  Mrs.  Blakemore,  who 
had  swung  her  chair  about  in  order  to  get  up. 
Then  he  said  to  me  with  a  smile: 

"Well,  I  don't  know  as  I'd  have  put  it  just 
that  way.  But  I'm  the  man."  And  the  two  of 
them  walked  out  of  the  saloon. 

I  haven't  blazed  on  every  occasion  of  my 
career  with  the  brilliancy  of  an  eight-million 
candle-power  arc  light,  but  on  this  one  I  felt 
uncommonly  like  a  wax  match  in  a  waterspout. 
And  it  wasn't  altogether  on  my  own  account 
either.  I  would  have  given  anything  not  to 
have  thrown  Blakemore  to  the  lions  like  that, 
for  a  liner  is  a  worse  place  for  tattle  than  a  vil 
lage  Dorcas  society.  So  as  soon  as  I  got  myself 
together  a  bit,  I  went  up  on  deck,  where  I  found 
the  two  of  them  sitting  silently  in  their  chairs. 
It  didn't  make  me  feel  any  more  comfortable.  I 
pulled  up  another  chair  beside  Blakemore — a 
vile  trick,  too ;  nothing  makes  me  more  furious 
than  to  have  other  people  snatch  my  chair — 
and  began  rather  lamely : 

"I  say,  old  chap,  I'm  awfully  sorry  to  have 
made  such  an  infernal  donkey  of  myself.  The 
thing  positively  never  entered  my  head.  You 
see  I  modestly  took  it  for  granted  that  I  was  the 


296  THE  REGICIDE 

only  one  on  board  who  had  ever  been  anywhere. 
And  then  no  human  being  would  ever  take  you 
for  a  regicide,  as  the  papers  had  it.  But  they 
always  distort  things  so.  If  you — if  there  was 
some  trouble,  I  know  there  must  have  been  good 
reason  for  it." 

I  knew  the  man  was  a  brick,  but  I  didn't  know 
what  a  brick  he  was  till  I  heard  him  chuckle 
there  in  the  dark. 

"The  reason  was  the  funny  part  of  it!"  he 
exclaimed. 

I  had  no  doubt  of  that.  The  reason  is  the 
funny  part  of  most  human  achievements.  For 
the  moment,  however,  I  could  only  be  conscious 
of  gratitude  to  Blakemore  for  letting  me  down 
so  softly,  and  of  admiration  for  the  way  he 
did  it. 

"It's  a  wonder  you  didn't  die  of  plague  in  such 
a  deadly  place,"  I  said,  trying  to  take  his  cue 
and  incidentally  to  disclaim  some  of  my  asper 
sions  in  the  saloon,  "or  get  eaten  up  by  Bagdad 
boils.  How  on  earth  did  you  ever  happen  to 
go  there?" 

"Well,"  answered  Blakemore,  "I've  rather 
wondered  myself.  I  guess  our  senataor  had 
as  much  to  do  with  it  as  anybody.  He's  a 
neighbour  of  ours,  you  know.  And  I'd  never 
been  about  very  much,  and  always  had  an 
idea  I'd  like  to  see  the  world.  And  then 


THE  REGICIDE  297 

Louisa  here,  she  was  sort  of  set  on  Afric's  coral 
strand " 

A  voice  suddenly  came  out  of  the  darkness 
beyond  him: 

"Golden  sand,  Alonzo." 

"That's  so,  Louisa,"  he  returned  good 
humouredly.  And  to  me :  "I  suppose  you  know 
'Greenland's  Icy  Mountains/  sir — the  mission 
ary  hymn.  I  never  can  remember  whether 
Afric's  or  India's  sunny  fountains  roll  down 
their  golden  sand,  but  it's  Louisa's  strong  point. 
She's  vice-president  of  the  Woman's  Auxiliary 
at  home,  and  I  guess  she'd  'a'  been  a  missionary 
herself  if  I  hadn't  persuaded  her  to  undertake  a 
tougher  job." 

I  confess  I  had  rather  forgotten  Louisa  until 
she  made  her  amendment.  But  the  nature  of 
the  words  she  uttered  reminded  me,  inconse- 
quently  enough,  of  the  incident  which  I  have 
recorded  and  of  my  somewhat  ill-substantiated 
theory  with  regard  to  her  inner  composition. 
Which,  with  what  Alonzo  had  been  saying,  gave 
me  a  new  sense  of  the  situation.  I  hardly  know 
how  to  express  the  curious  little  complication 
of  interest  it  suddenly  presented  to  me.  I  be 
gan  to  see  so  much,  indeed,  that  I'm  afraid  I 
forgot  my  contrition  in  my  curiosity.  Blake- 
more  saved  me,  however,  from  the  embarrass 
ment  of  betraying  it. 


298  THE  REGICIDE 

"Well,  there  didn't  seem  to  be  an  openin'  for 
us  on  Afric's  golden  sand  or  India's  coral  strand, 
so  the  folks  in  Washington  split  the  difference 
and  sent  us  to  Basra.  That  comforted  Louisa 

some,  because  of How  does  the  hymn  go  ?" 

he  broke  off,  turning  to  his  wife. 

"  Trom  many  an  ancient  river,  from  many  a 
palmy  plain,  they  call  us  to  deliver  their  land 
from  error's  chain/  "  quoted  Louisa  from  the 
shades. 

"That's  it,"  said  Alonzo,  resuming  the  thread 
of  his  discourse.  "You  see  the  Tigris  and 
Euphrates  flow  through  those  parts,  and  it's 
palmy  enough  and  plain  enough  to  suit  any 
body.  In  fact  it  was  so  plain  that  the  first  time 
we  see  it  we  pretty  near  turned  around  and 
come  home !  And  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  it  would 
have  been  better  for  us  if  we  had." 

"Dear  me !"  I  made  haste  to  exclaim.  "I've 
been  waiting  for  years  for  a  chance  to  get  to 
Bagdad  and  the  Gulf.  What  sort  of  a  place  is 
Basra?" 

"What  sort  of  a  place  is  Basra?"  he  repeated. 
"I  ain't  very  much  up  on  these  foreign  towns, 
you  know.  Gibraltar  and  Naples  and  Port  Said 
are  about  the  only  other  ones  I've  seen,  of  any 
account,  and  those  I  saw  mostly  from  the  boat. 
But  if  they're  all  like  Basra,  little  old  Benning- 
ton  is  good  enough  for  your  Uncle  Alonzo.  I 


THE  REGICIDE  299 

shouldn't  wonder  if  it  isn't  something  like  that 
place  Venice  you  hear  about.  It's  all  little 
creeks  and  canals  from  the  Shat — that  big  inlet 
where  Louisa's  ancient  rivers  run  together. 
And  Lord  how  it  stinks  when  the  tide  goes  out ! 
And  the  houses  are  nothin'  but  mud  shanties, 
most  of  'em,  and  the  streets  are  more  like  cow 
paths  than  anythin'  else.  The  best  thing  about 
it  is  the  palms.  They're  real  tall  and  hand 
some,  sort  of  like  skyscraper  umbrellas  stuck 
around  in  the  mud.  I  won't  say,  though,  but 
what  an  elm  would  have  looked  pretty  good  to 
me.  We  found  it  a  little  lonesome,  first  and  last 
— 'specially  at  night,  with  nothin'  much  goin' 
on  but  dogs  barkin'  and  water  creepin'  through 
the  creeks  and  the  palm  trees  slashin'  around. 
They're  a  remarkable  restless  kind  of  trees." 

The  picture  grew  under  my  eyes,  curiously,  as 
Blakemore  paused.  The  sounds  about  us,  weav 
ing  a  sort  of  melodic  figure  above  the  deep 
rhythm  of  the  engines  and  the  wash  of  the 
water  against  the  side,  made  it  all  the  more 
vivid — the  coming  and  going  of  footsteps  in 
the  dark,  the  broken  play  of  voices  and  laugh 
ter,  the  strumming  of  Italian  guitars  in  the 
steerage.  I  thought  of  old  summer  nights  on 
the  Bosphorus. 

"But  I  had  my  work,"  Blakemore  went  on. 
"We  had  quite  a  lot  of  invoices  to  attend  to. 


300  THE  REGICIDE 

They  send  out  tons  of  dates  from  there,  you 
know,  besides  licorice  and  all  sorts  of  gums,  and 
some  few  of  them  A-rab  horses.  Somehow  I 
took  to  them  quicker'n  I  did  to  those  other 
A-rabs.  That's  what  most  of  the  people  are, 
down  there.  We  didn't  just  get  on  to  their 
curves,  Louisa  and  I.  Not  that  some  of  'em 
didn't  afford  us  a  pretty  copious  exhibition  of 
curves !"  he  laughed.  "Of  course  it  was  hardest 
on  Louisa,  because  the  help  wa'n't  used  to  our 
ways  and  didn't  understand  more'n  a  quarter 
of  what  we  were  drivin'  at.  We  like  to  have 
forgotten  our  own  language.  I  certified  a  signa 
ture  once  for  a  sailor  whose  aunt  had  died  in 
Portland  and  left  him  $10  and  a  mournin'  ring, 
and  he  was  about  the  only  American  who  ever 
came  into  my  office.  You  can  believe  I  didn't 
charge  him  any  fee,  I  was  that  glad  to  see  him. 
But  it  wouldn't  be  fair  to  make  out  that  we 
were  the  only  white  people  in  the  place.  There 
was  the  English  consul  and  his  folks,  and  a  few 
English  traders,  and  the  captains  of  the  steam 
ers  that  went  down  the  Gulf  and  up  the  Tigris 
and  the  Karun,  and  Louisa's  friends  the  mis 
sionaries,  besides  quite  a  number  of  other  con 
suls  and  people  who  spoke  English." 

"What  kind  did  you  have  for  vice-consuls  and 
clerks  and  all  that  ?"  I  craftily  inquired,  by  way 
of  keeping  the  ball  rolling.  "White  or  black?" 


THE  REGICIDE  301 

"Neither.  He  was  half  and  half,  as  most  of 
'em  looked  to  be.  He  was  a  Persian,  who  never 
took  off  a  stovepipe  hat  he  wore,  with  no  brim 
to  it.  His  name  was  so  long  I  called  him  Vice, 
for  short.  It  fitted  him  pretty  well,  I  reckon. 
He  knew  some  English,  and  he  claimed  to  be 
some  blue-blood.  It  was  through  him  that  we 
came  to  know  his  nibs  the  Sultan." 

"Oh !"  ejaculated  I.  And  I'm  afraid  my  thirst 
for  knowledge  wasn't  altogether  ingenuous 
when  I  pursued :  "How  does  there  happen  to  be 
one,  by  the  way?  I  thought  the  Sultan  of 
Turkey  ruled  that  neck  of — palm  trees." 

"Well,  he  thinks  he  does.  But  the  King  of 
England  has  something  to  say  about  that,  not 
to  mention  the  Shah  of  Persia.  And  between 
the  three  of  them  there's  a  little  ten-acre  lot  of 
a  country  at  the  head  of  the  Gulf  that  has  a  sort 
of  Sultan  of  its  own.  He  gets  most  of  his  state 
revenues  selling  vegetables.  It  was  along  o' 
him  and  his  folks  that  Louisa  and  I  got  into 
trouble."  Blakemore  chuckled  again.  "He  used 
to  come  up  to  Basra  quite  a  lot.  I  guess  there 
wasn't  much  doin'  down  his  way  and  he  liked  to 
keep  up  with  the  news.  He  talked  English  quite 
well.  He'd  been  a  clerk  in  the  English  con 
sulate  in  Bagdad  before  he  succeeded  to  the 
throne.  You'd  never  guess  it,  though,  to  see 
him.  He  was  a  dark-complected  party  in  a 


302  THE  REGICIDE 

green  bathrobe,  with  about  ten  yards  of  muslin 
wrapped  around  his  head  for  a  crown.  And 
under  his  bathrobe  he  had  on  a  white  night 
shirt.  They  all  wear  'em  down  there.  I  don't 
much  wonder  at  'em,  either.  You  feel  like  goin' 
to  bed  most  of  the  time." 

"It  must  be  good  and  hot,"  I  threw  out. 

"Hot!  I  ain't  afraid  of  the  next  world  any 
more !  The  only  way  we  could  get  any  kind  of 
comfort  was  to  sleep  all  day  in  the  cellar  and 
sleep  all  night  on  the  roof.  The  houses  were 
built  so  you  could.  It  come  rather  hard  to  us, 
though,  not  bein'  used  to  that  sort  of  thing. 
Then  there  were  all  sorts  of  critters  crawlin' 
and  flyin'  about  that  made  us  mighty  uneasy. 
And  the  victuals  was  kind  o'  queer  and  didn't 
just  agree  with  us.  And  then  we  both  got  spells 
of  fever.  Most  people  do,  there,  and  they  seem 
to  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course.  But  we 
couldn't,  somehow.  So  when  Vice  suggested 
that  we  go  down  to  the  Sultan's  place  and  rent  a 
cottage  he  had  on  an  island  there,  we  jumped  at 
the  idea." 

He  stopped  again,  and  I  trembled  lest  some 
thing  break  his  flow  of  reminiscence. 

"Vice  took  charge  of  the  consulate,  and 
Louisa  and  I  and  two  or  three  of  the  help— 
everybody  has  a  raft  of  'em  there — went  down 
the  inlet.  It  was  quite  a  journey,  what  with  the 


THE  REGICIDE  303 

outlandish  boat  we  travelled  in,  and  the  miles 
of  date  palms  along  the  shore,  and  the  bright 
green  rice  fields,  and  the  swamps  and  the  reeds 
and  all.  It  took  us  about  all  day  to  do  the  fifty 
or  sixty  miles  down  to  the  Gulf,  and  then  we 
had  to  sail  a  bit,  out  to  the  Sultan's  island.  It 
was  night  long  before  we  got  there.  But  I  can 
tell  you  it  seemed  good  at  last  to  sit  on  some 
thing  that  was  almost  like  a  reaj  piazza,  with 
the  sea  in  front  of  it,  and  stars  shinin'  overhead 
ten  times  brighter'n  these,  and  a  clump  of  palm 
trees  at  the  side  makin'  a  little  company  like. 

"The  island  looked  nicer  at  night  than  it  did 
in  the  daytime.  Most  of  it  was  red-hot  rocks 
and  white-hot  sand.  I  never  seen  such  a  sun. 
The  glare  was  enough  to  put  your  eyes  out.  But 
at  least  it  was  a  change,  and  it  didn't  smell  like 
the  wrath  to  come.  One  end  of  it,  too,  where  we 
lived,  was  quite  pleasant  and  shady  with  palm 
trees.  We  had  some  neighbours  who  weren't 
quite  so  pleasant,  though  I  wouldn't  answer  for 
the  shady  part.  They  were  coloured  folks. 

"We  didn't  know  till  afterward  that  the 
island  was  the  Sultan's  summer  home.  He  was 
stayin'  in  his  winter  palace,  on  the  mainland. 
We  sailed  over  there  to  see  him  once  or  twice. 
He  had  quite  a  neat  little  capitol,  as  things  go 
down  there,  all  white  and  more  or  less  fixed  up. 
He  showed  us  around  himself,  most  polite.  I 


304  THE  REGICIDE 

never  supposed  royalties  would  put  themselves 
out  so  much  for  common  folks.  It  was  because 
he  was  our  landlord,  I  guess,  and  maybe  he 
calculated  to  sell  us  some  vegetables. 

"His  mother  wasn't  so  accommodatin'.  It 
seemed  the  old  lady  was  the  whole  thing  in  that 
country,  and  there  was  nothin'  for  it  but  we 
must  have  an  audience  with  her.  We  were 
taken  into  her  part  of  the  house  and  into  a  big 
room  where  there  wasn't  much  of  anything  but 
an  iron  bed  with  a  sort  of  thick  mosquito  net 
over  it.  I  thought  we'd  made  a  mistake, 
specially  when  I  saw  something  move  behind 
the  net,  and  I  started  to  back  out.  So  I  stood  in 
the  door  and  asked  her  how  she  felt.  She  didn't 
know  English,  but  the  Sultan  interpreted  for  us. 
She  said  she  felt  warm.  I  told  her  I  didn't 
wonder — under  that  canopy ;  she'd  better  come 
out  where  it  was  cooler.  I  don't  believe  she 
was  much  pleased  at  that,  or  at  some  of  the 
other  things  I  said,  and  we  didn't  stay  long.  It 
turned  out  that  she  was  mortally  offended  by 
my  coolness,  and  the  shortness  of  our  visit.  She 
was  that  mad  she  wouldn't  have  Louisa  in  alone 
to  set  with  her,  the  way  they  do.  Vice  said  I 
ought  to  have  made  a  dive  for  the  bed,  tearin' 
my  hair  and  hollerin'  that  I  must  see  the  beau 
teous  being  behind  those  curtains  if  it  took  a 
leg.  The  Sultan  would  have  made  to  drag  me 


THE  REGICIDE  305 

back,  and  then  when  the  old  lady  got  through 
gigglin'  we  ought  to  have  sat  and  visited  for 
three  hours."  Blakemore  chuckled  again.  "Now 
did  you  ever  have  such  doin's  as  that  up  to  your 
place?" 

I  certainly  never  did — though  I  once  had  the 
honour  of  taking  afternoon  tea  in  the  bedroom 
of  a  Turkish  poetess  (honi  soit  qui  mal  y 
pensel),  the  poetess  being  in  the  bed,  wonder 
fully  got  up  in  pink  ribbons  and  an  ondulation 
Marcel.  I  inwardly  blessed  myself  for  the  mar 
vellous  ass  I  was  in  so  nearly  missing  the 
strange  adventures  of  Alonzo  and  Louisa. 

"Yes,  they  were  funny  folks,"  mused  Blake- 
more — "easy  goin'  and  good  natured  and  all, 
but  you  never  could  tell  which  way  they'd  jump. 
The  ladies  now:  they  were  all  just  about  as 
modest  as  the  Sultana.  When  you  met  'em  on 
the  street  they  looked  like  one  of  those  shower 
baths  with  a  rubber  screen  around  it,  out  for  a 
walk,  they  were  so  scared  you'd  see  anything 
of  'em ;  and  some  of  'em  never  travelled  without 
a  regular  tent  that  it  took  two  or  three  servants 
to  hold  over  'em.  But  they  didn't  seem  to  have 
no  kind  of  moderation  in  their  ideas.  They  were 
all  one  way  or  all  the  other,  and  you  never  could 
tell  which  it'd  be.  At  least  the  bunch  of  them 
that  lived  near  us  on  the  island  were  like  that. 
There  was  plenty  of  room,  heaven  knows.  Yet 


306  THE  REGICIDE 

for  some  reason  or  other  they  used  to  come  to 

bathe  on  our  beach.  And  they The  fact 

is  they  didn't " 

Alonzo's  delicacy  left  me  to  gather  wherein 
consisted  the  immoderation  of  the  coloured 
ladies  of  the  island. 

"I  have  always  understood/'  I  observed  as 
gravely  as  I  might,  "that  they  are  somewhat 
free  in  those  warm  countries." 

"Free!"  exclaimed  a  voice  beyond  Alonzo's 
chair.  "The  last  part  of  the  time  Alonzo  couldn't 
go  out  of  the  house." 

Mrs.  Blakemore  spoke  so  seldom  that  her 
words  weighed  more  than  those  of  other  peo 
ple,  and  these  affected  me  so  powerfully  that  I 
was  grateful  to  the  darkness  for  hiding  my 
face.  Nevertheless  I  was  increasingly  able  to 
appreciate  what  a  brick  Alonzo  was.  For  in 
what  he  went  on  to  communicate  he  somehow 
contrived  to  impart  his  own  sense  of  the  situa 
tion  without  being  in  the  least  nasty  to  his  wife. 

"That  was  just  Louisa's  meat,  though,"  he 
continued.  "We'd  been  a  little  disappointed 
about  the  golden  sand  and  all,  you  know,  but 
here  was  a  clear  call  to  deliver  their  land  from 
error's  chain.  When  it  came  to  the  point,  how 
ever,  they  weren't  much  for  it.  I  presume  it 
might  have  been  different  if  they'd  had  an  idea 
what  Louisa  was  talkin'  about  when  she  took 


THE  REGICIDE  307 

her  knittin'  and  went  and  set  with  'em.  Any 
how  they  went  right  on  sun-burnin'  themselves 
all  over.  So  Louisa  and  I  did  what  we  could. 
We  sent  up  to  Bagdad  by  one  of  the  English 
captains  for  a  lot  of  bathin'  suits.  I  wasn't  sure 
how  much  they'd  do  toward  turnin'  the  heathen 
from  the  error  of  her  way,  but  I  thought  there 
might  be  room  for  quite  a  trade  if  once  it  got 
started.  And  sure  enough  it  got  started  all 
right.  There  ain't  a  lady  of  wealth  and  fashion 
in  the  Persian  Gulf  this  summer  who  don't  go 
to  parties  in  a  red-and-white-striped  bathin' 
suit!  But  Louisa  didn't  come  out  so  well,  for 
the  same  doin's  kept  on  as  before.  And  when 
she  had  a  session  with  the  Sultan  on  the  sub 
ject,  she  found  they  thought  the  clothes  were 
for  land,  not  for  water,  and  that  they  wouldn't 
dream  of  wettin'  such  pretty  things." 

Blakemore  laughed  with  me  that  time.  He 
was  not  the  man  to  miss  the  humour  of  his 
wife's  difficulties  with  the  daughters  of  the  sun. 
I  am  quite  incapable,  however,  of  reproducing 
the  tone  of  his  amusement.  There  was  not  a 
trace  of  sharpness  in  it.  All  the  same  an  old 
line  of  Virgil  popped  into  my  head,  repeating 
itself  to  the  rhythm  of  the  engines:  Dux 
femina  facti.  I  had  no  idea  how  this  mission 
ary  consulship  ended  in  a  regicidal  attempt ;  but 
I  knew  perfectly  well  that  however  Blakemore 


308  THE  REGICIDE 

might  ascribe  it  to  himself,  Mrs.  Blakemore  was 
the  head  and  front  of  it. 

"We  had  quite  a  time  about  it  first  and  last," 
Blakemore  went  on.  "When  we  found  that  the 
slumberin'  susceptibilities  of  our  lady  friends 
were  not  likely  to  be  aroused  by  ordinary 
means,  we  tried  more  powerful  ones.  We  sent 
the  help  to  order  'em  off.  We  invoked  the 
authority  of  our  country  and  went  out  with 
Louisa  holding  up  the  flag  and  I  behind  it  prom- 
isin'  all  kinds  of  destruction.  We  appealed  to 
the  Sultan.  But  it  didn't  do  any  good.  So  at 
last,  you  know,  we  kind  o'  got  our  blood  up 
about  it.  I  can't  explain  it  very  well,  and  I 
shouldn't  wonder  if  it  would  be  harder  still 
when  I  get  to  Washington.  I  don't  know- 
things  look  sort  of  different  with  the  thermom 
eter  two  or  three  hundred  in  the  shade  and 
nothin'  particular  to  do.  Anyhow  it  riled  us 
that  those  women  should  go  on  like  that  in  spite 
of  everything — and  we  the  representatives  of 
the  greatest  country  in  the  world.  So  I  con 
cluded  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  take  to 
gunpowder.  I  knew  a  little  birdshot  wouldn't 
hurt  'em." 

"Gracious!"  I  exclaimed.    "Did  it?" 
"I  don't  believe  so,"  he  answered.    "But  one 
of  'em  didn't  fancy  it.    You  should  have  heard 
her  yell!     She  went  to  our  friend  the  Sultan 


THE  REGICIDE  309 

about  it.  It  turned  out  that  she  was  his  wife." 
For  the  third  time  during  this  interview  the 
voice  of  Mrs.  Blakemore  issued  from  the  night. 

"They  all  were !"  she  uttered  sepulchrally. 

"Yes,"  corroborated  Blakemore.  "He  told  us 
— afterward.  He  hadn't  thought  fit  to  mention 
it  before.  I  couldn't  blame  'em  for  bein'  an 
noyed.  It's  a  rude  thing  to  do — to  fire  birdshot 
at  ladies." 

He  settled  back  in  his  chair.  It  was  the  only 
sign  he  gave.  As  for  me,  I  hardly  knew  what 
sign  to  give.  I  watched  the  rail  heave  slowly 
up  and  down  across  the  stars.  I  heard  the 
water  wash  against  the  side.  I  listened  to  the 
interwoven  sound  of  voices  and  laughter  and 
singing  about  us  in  the  summer  night,  per 
vaded  by  the  deep  rhythm  of  the  engines.  And 
it  seemed  to  me,  through  my  repressed  snickers, 
that  this  preposterous  little  story  was  prepos 
terously  like  life.  It  was  nothing  but  a  farce. 
It  would  make  its  fortune  if  it  fell  into  the  right 
hands.  But  told  as  Blakemore  told  it,  jerkily, 
without  half  bringing  it  out,  betraying  its  real 
values  in  spite  of  himself,  it  did  not  solely 
incline  me  to  mirth.  It  inclined  me  to  several 
other  things.  Incidentally  it  inclined  me  to 
think  that  if  you  put  a  good  God-fearing  New 
England  woman  down  on  a  blazing  Arabic 
island,  with  too  little  to  think  about,  there's  no 


310  THE  REGICIDE 

telling  what  will  happen.  Something  must,  and 
it  needn't  necessarily  make  copy  for  Robert 
Hichens.  The  sense  of  it,  and  of  us  all  on  that 
lighted  ship  in  the  dark  sea,  sailing  together  for 
a  few  days,  heaven  only  knew  where  and  why, 
made  me  lapse  off  into  a  reverie  of  this  queer 
improper  world  of  ours,  that  is  really  no  place 
for  a  lady,  but  that  after  all  is  something  for 
to  admire  and  for  to  see — where  some  of  us  are 
whited  sepulchres,  and  some  of  us  are  lined  with 
pink,  and  few  of  us  can  help  it,  and  the  best 
souls  get  put  down  as  persona  non  grata,  and 
funny  stories  lie  behind  cold  official  facts,  and 
people  may  be  as  absurd  as  hippopotamuses  and 
yet 

"Wouldn't  you  have  done  it  yourself?"  sud 
denly  demanded  Mrs.  Blakemore. 

I  turned  in  surprise  and  saw  the  profile  of  this 
formidable  woman  against  the  light  of  a  port 
hole  a  little  way  down  the  deck.  I  knew  it 
wasn't  her  fault  if  a  dozen  dusky  queens  were 
not  at  that  minute  lying  cold  in  their  graves. 
But — I  don't  know — it  came  over  me  that  the 
variations  on  the  theme  of  what  a  man  will  do 
for  a  woman  are  sometimes  extremely  strange. 
And  I  couldn't  help  wondering  how  this  woman 
would  look  if  she  were  turned  inside  out. 

"Why,  yes,"  I  heard  myself  answer.  "I  pre 
sume  I  would." 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 


YES,  it's  a  very  decent  old  gun.  The  chas 
ing  of  silver  on  the  stock  couldn't  be 
much  better.  And  look  at  the  line  of 
that  preposterous  old  bell  mouth.  It's  a  Cesarini 
— from  Milan,  you  know;  sixteenth  century. 
More  than  one  collector  has  tried  to  get  it  from 
me.  But  no  one  ever  will — while  I'm  alive.  I 
can't  bear  to  sell  my  things,  however  much  peo 
ple  offer  for  them.  One  has  so  much  fun  in  get 
ting  them,  and  they  become  a  part  of  the  place 
— of  one's  self.  I  would  as  soon  think  of  selling 
my  children!  And  one  likes  them  for  all  the 
things  that  must  have  happened  to  them. 
Whom  do  you  suppose  Cesarini  made  that  chap 
for  ?  And  what  wars  did  he  fight  in  ?  And  how 
did  he  ever  happen  to  end  in  the  Bazaar  of 
Broussa?  Not  that  he  has  ended  yet.  He  has 
had  one  adventure  since  he  came  to  live  with 
me.  And  it  was  quite  worthy  of  him. 

Shall  I  really  tell  you?  Beware!  I  have  no 
mercy,  once  I  get  started  on  my  yarns.  How 
ever — the  thing  happened  during  the  Balkan 

311 


312        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

war.  It  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  war,  and 
yet  it  could  not  have  happened  if  the  town  had 
been  less  upset.  What  a  strange  time  that 
was!  At  the  outset  everybody  was  perfectly 
sure  that  the  business  could  end  only  in  one 
way.  Then,  when  the  bottom  was  knocked  out 
of  everything,  we  didn't  know  where  we  were  or 
what  would  happen  next. 
1  For  us  foreigners,  of  course,  there  were  alle 
viations  of  the  general  gloom.  Different  kinds 
of  people  came  together  a  great  deal  more  than 
they  had  before,  in  the  common  excitement  and 
in  their  common  sympathy  for  the  sick  and 
wounded.  And  while  none  of  the  usual  big  par 
ties  took  place,  there  was  a  good  deal  going  on 
unofficially  by  reason  of  the  presence  of  the 
international  squadron  in  the  harbour.  Half 
the  girls  in  Pera  ended  by  getting  engaged  to 
naval  officers.  There  wasn't  much  fun  for  the 
natives,  though,  whether  Christian  or  Turk. 
They  were  all  in  a  tremendous  funk,  each  side 
expecting  to  be  cut  up  by  the  other,  and  waiting 
for  the  Bulgarians  with  different  kinds  of  sus 
pense.  It  must  have  been  rather  a  new  sensa 
tion  for  the  Turks.  I  don't  know  how  many  of 
them  I  heard  of  who  begged  Europeans  to  take 
care  of  their  families  or  their  valuables.  As  for 
the  Palace  people,  steam  was  kept  up  night  and 
day  on  the  imperial  yacht,  and  it  was  only  some 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        313 

very  plain  speaking  in  high  quarters  that  kept 
them  from  running  away  to  Broussa.  But  they 
were  all  packed  and  ready.  And  it  was  a  long 
time  before  the  treasures  of  the  Seraglio  were 
put  in  order  again,  after  that  hasty  boxing  up. 

Well,  the  state  of  affairs  was  such  that  I 
thought  nothing  when  a  man  came  to  me  one 
afternoon  with  a  small  parcel,  and  asked  me  if 
I  would  keep  it  for  him  till  the  "troubles"  were 
over.  It  was  a  funny  little  parcel,  wrapped  up 
in  the  Turkish  way  in  a  bit  of  stuff — a  figured 
silk  shot  with  gold  thread.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
there  it  is!  A  pretty  bit,  isn't  it?  The  man 
told  me  the  parcel  contained  his  savings  and  a 
few  trinkets  that  belonged  to  his  "family" — 
otherwise  his  wife.  These  people  never  trust  a 
bank,  you  know.  He  was  a  Turk  of  thirty  or 
thirty-five,  with  nothing  very  distinguishable 
about  him  except  that  he  was  plainly  not  an 
aristocrat.  He  seemed  to  be  the  sort  of  man 
who  writes  in  his  hand  in  the  anterooms  of 
ministries.  He  had  a  pleasant  dark  face,  on  the 
whole,  and  of  course  he  was  very  polite. 

I  warned  him  that  my  house  would  be  no 
safer  than  his  own  if  anything  really  happened. 
He  smilingly  disagreed.  I  therefore  consented 
to  take  his  parcel.  But  I  told  him  that  I  would 
accept  no  responsibility  for  it.  If  there  was  a 
general  bust-up,  or  if  the  house  was  bombarded 


314        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

or  broken  into,  I  couldn't  be  held  for  the  value 
of  what  his  parcel  might  contain.  He  was  per 
fectly  willing  to  let  it  be  so.  He  said  that  God 
was  great :  if  any  house  was  spared,  mine  would 
be.  He  merely  asked  me  to  put  the  parcel  in 
some  safe  place,  and  to  give  it  to  no  one  except 
himself.  And  when  I  proposed  a  receipt  he 
wouldn't  have  one.  He  said  I  didn't  know  him 
but  he  knew  me,  and  he  needed  no  paper. 

I  was  just  beginning  to  expostulate  with  him, 
pointing  out  that  things  might  happen  to  one 
or  the  other  of  us,  when  some  one  came  in  to  see 
me.  My  man  took  leave  at  once,  and  for  the 
moment  I  put  his  parcel  in  a  drawer  of  my  desk. 
My  visitor  brought  me  a  new  and  rather  star 
tling  rumour,  and  we  talked  over  plans  for  the 

safety  of  the  Anglo-American  colony,  if 

There  was  a  question  of  a  boat  to  take  refuge 
on,  you  know,  and  patrols  to  be  landed  from  the 
men-of-war,  and  I  don't  know  what.  There  were 
a  good  many  details  to  arrange  and  sensibilities 
to  consider.  We  finally  walked  over  to  the 
embassy,  and  then  we  went  on  to  the  English 
embassy,  and  the  long  and  the  short  of  it  was 
that  I  didn't  go  back  to  my  study  that  night. 

The  first  thing  they  told  me  the  next  morning 
was  that  my  old  gun  was  gone  from  its  place  on 
the  wall.  The  servants  had  missed  it  when  they 
cleaned  the  room.  I  was  much  put  about,  and 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        315 

called  everybody  up  to  investigate.  Nobody  had 
seen  or  heard  anything.  No  lock  had  been 
forced  either,  though  there  seemed  to  be  a  little 
haziness  as  to  whether  all  the  windows  had  been 
fastened.  As  for  the  servants  themselves,  I 
felt  sure  that  none  of  them  would  take  the  gun. 
They  had  all  been  a  long  time  in  the  place,  like 
the  gun  itself.  Why  should  they  suddenly  walk 
off  with  it?  Then  I  thought  of  my  man  of  the 
day  before.  Might  he,  by  any  chance,  have 
hung  about  till  he  saw  me  go  away  and  then 
have  managed  to  get  the  gun  without  any  one 
noticing  him?  Having  remembered  the  man,  I 
bethought  me  of  his  parcel,  which  I  had  in 
tended  to  stow  in  the  safe,  but  which  I  had  put 
in  my  desk  and  completely  forgotten. 

I  then  discovered  that  the  parcel  was  gone 
too — or  the  contents  of  it.  The  silk  cover  was 
still  there  in  the  drawer,  neatly  folded  up.  I 
was  disgusted  enough  with  myself  for  having 
been  so  careless.  And  I  couldn't  even  let  the 
man  know.  I  had  no  idea  what  his  name  was, 
or  his  address,  or  anything  about  him.  The  only 
possible  clue  to  him  was  that  he  had  said  he 
knew  me,  and  that  he  looked  like  a  government 
clerk.  He  might  be  an  employee  of  one  of  the 
ministries  where  I  was  in  the  habit  of  going. 
His  valuables  were  not  likely  to  be  very  valuable, 
it  was  true,  but  he  would  probably  be  just  as 


316        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

sorry  to  lose  them  as  I  was  to  lose  my  Cesarini. 
It  was  rather  funny,  though,  that  the  thief 
should  have  taken  those  two  things  and  nothing 
else. 

II 

I  was  inclined  to  make  a  fuss  about  my  Ces 
arini.  The  police,  when  they  came,  inquired 
very  particularly  as  to  my  age,  and  my  father's 
name,  and  very  carefully  wrote  down  on  a  large 
piece  of  paper  my  answers  to  these  and  other 
pregnant  questions.  They  also  offered  to  arrest 
any  or  all  of  the  servants — several  of  whom 
were  Montenegrins,  and  therefore  persons  non 
gratse.  But  they  were  too  much  preoccupied 
with  the  more  immediate  questions  of  the  day 
to  take  very  much  interest  in  an  old  gun  stolen 
out  of  the  house  of  a  foreigner. 

In  the  afternoon  I  had  occasion  to  go  over  to 
the  Sublime  Porte.  And  incidentally  I  looked 
over  all  the  clerks  I  saw,  in  the  hope  of  finding 
my  man  of  the  parcel.  But  there  was  no  sign 
of  him.  When  I  was  through  with  my  business 
I  drove  on  to  the  Bazaars.  A  good  many  of  the 
things  stolen  in  Constantinople  end  there,  in  the 
Bezesten.  You  know  that  murky  old  centre  of 
the  Bazaar,  which  opens  later  and  closes  earlier 
than  the  rest.  I  always  like  to  go  there — be 
cause  of  the  way  the  light  strikes  dustily  down 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON         317 

from  the  high  windows,  and  the  way  silks  and 
rugs  and  brasses  and  porcelain  and  old  arms  and 
every  imaginable  kind  of  junk  are  piled  pellmell 
in  raised  stalls,  and  the  way  old  gentlemen  in 
gown  and  turban  sit  among  them  as  if  they 
didn't  care  whether  you  bought  or  not,  but 
rather  preferred  to  be  saved  the  trouble  of  bar 
gaining  with  you.  One  of  them  happened  to  be 
quite  a  friend  of  mine,  and  is  to  this  day.  He 
makes  a  specialty  of  mediaeval  arms.  I  told 
him,  over  a  cup  of  coffee  which  I  drank  sitting 
cross-legged  with  him  on  a  rug,  that  a  valuable 
old  Italian  gun  had  been  stolen  from  me  and 
that  if  he  happened  to  see  or  hear  of  any  such 
thing  he  was  to  let  me  know.  I  also  bought  an 
Albanian  yataghan  from  him,  which  I  didn't 
pay  for,  just  to  keep  on  good  terms. 

After  taking  leave  of  Hassan  Effendi  I  told 
my  coachman  to  drive  down  to  the  Bridge  and 
wait  for  me  there.  I  thought  I  would  walk 
down,  to  see  how  Stamboafwa*  taking  the  war. 
I  began  my  walk,  as  I  am  somewhat  prone  to  do, 
by  sitting  down  in  the  mosque-yard  of  Mahmoud 
Pasha.  The  time  for  that  mosque-yard  is  sum 
mer  rather  than  winter.  But  there  was  still 
sun  in  the  air,  there  were  a  few  leaves  on  the 
trees,  and  people  as  usual  were  lounging  on  rug- 
covered  benches  and  smoking  hubble-bubbles. 
I  ordered  one  too.  It  is  an  old  vice  of  mine. 


318        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

As  I  sat  there  under  the  trees,  adding  the 
bubble  of  my  water-pipe  to  the  bubble  that 
went  on  around  me,  listening  to  the  scraps  of 
talk  that  one  hears  in  such  a  place,  two  soldiers 
came  out  of  the  mosque.  They  stopped  a 
moment  in  the  high  old  portico  to  pull  on  their 
boots,  and  then  picked  their  way  between  the 
benches  to  one  farther  than  mine  from  the  main 
thoroughfare  through  the  yard.  One  of  them 
was  a  tall,  thin,  sullen-looking  fellow  with  a 
frowzy  red  moustache  and  funny  eyes.  They 
looked  as  if  they  might  be  yellow.  The  other,  I 
presently  made  out,  was  none  other  than  my 
friend  of  the  parcel.  I  watched  them  give  their 
order  and  sit  down — my  man  with  his  back 
toward  me,  the  red-haired  one  facing  me.  He 
caught  me  looking.  What  is  more,  as  soon  as 
I  got  up  and  went  toward  them  he  slipped  away 
through  the  nearest  of  the  arched  gates  of  the 
yard.  I  don't  know  how  surprised  my  friend 
may  have  looked  as  he  stared  at  the  arch,  but 
he  certainly  looked  not  a  little  surprised  when 
he  saw  me.  It  did  not  strike  me  that  he  looked 
too  pleased,  either;  nor  was  I  delighted  at  the 
prospect  of  what  I  had  to  tell  him.  But  I  was 
also  rather  curious  about  his  friend.  And,  nat 
urally,  I  did  not  forget  my  gun.  However,  we 
exchanged  the  necessary  greetings  and  I  was 
invited  to  have  a  coffee. 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        319 

"You  will  not  wish  to  drink  a  coffee  with  me," 
I  told  him,  "when  you  hear  that  I  have  lost 
your  parcel." 

I  was  right.    His  face  changed  instantly. 

"Lost!  How  lost?"  he  asked.  "Was  it  not  in 
your  house  ?" 

"I  am  very  sorry,"  I  said,  "but  I  was  called 
away  yesterday,  as  you  saw.  I  did  not  go  back 
to  that  room  till  this  morning,  and  then  I  found 
the  parcel  was  gone.  Some  one  must  have  got 
in  during  the  night." 

I  looked  at  him  and  he  looked  at  me,  each  try 
ing  to  get  what  he  could  from  the  other's  face. 

"Have — have  you  looked  everywhere?"  he 
stammered  at  last.  "The  servants — do  you 
know  them?" 

"Better  than  I  know  you,"  I  permitted  myself 
to  answer. 

"And — have  you  told  the  police  ?" 

"Yes.  They  came,  and  asked  questions,  and 
made  a  journal,  and " 

Before  I  had  time  to  say  anything  else  or  tell 
the  man  about  my  own  loss — and  see  how  he 
would  take  it — he  was  off  in  turn  through  the 
arch  by  which  his  friend  had  vanished.  What 
is  more,  he  neglected  to  pay  his  bill,  as  the 
coffee-house  man  reminded  me  when  I  started 
after  him.  I  paid  it,  and  my  own  too,  and  felt 
rather  a  fool  for  being  so  slow.  But  by  that 


320        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

time  there  was  no  telling  what  had  become  of 
them,  in  that  tangle  of  little  streets.  Besides, 
I  have  lived  here  so  long  that  I  have  become 
rather  a  fatalist  myself.  If  my  Cesarini  was 
destined  to  change  hands  once  more  in  its  long 
career,  I  told  myself,  I  could  not  stop  it.  And  if 
it  was  written  that  the  Cesarini  should  come 
back,  why  come  back  it  would — as  you  see  it 
did!  And  after  all  it  was  rather  pleasant  to 
have  something  to  think  about  besides  the 
eternal  politics  of  the  hour. 

I  don't  know  whether  my  friend  found  his 
friend.  But  I  did,  no  later  than  that  night. 
There  was  a  dinner  on  board  the  Angry  Cat — as 
the  English  sailors  amusingly  called  the  French 
cruiser  Henri  Quatre.  We  had  a  first-rate  din 
ner  of  course,  and  chit-chat  afterward,  and  it 
was  quite  late  when  the  Angry  Kitten — other 
wise  the  motor  launch  of  the  Angry  Cat — 
started  to  put  us  ashore.  We  had  still  a  good 
bit  to  go  when  shots  cracked  not  far  away,  in 
the  direction  of  the  Bridge.  We  veered  around 
to  see  what  was  up.  When  we  arrived  on  the 
scene  we  were  hailed  rather  sternly  by  a  police 
boat;  but  they  softened  down  when  they  saw 
the  French  sailors.  I  spoke  to  them  in  Turkish, 
too,  and  told  them  who  we  were,  and  asked  if  we 
could  do  anything.  The  spokesman  of  the  police 
boat  thanked  me  politely  and  said  no,  there  was 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        321 

nothing;  he  would  not  trouble  us  to  stop.  By 
which  he  meant  he  would  trouble  us  to  retire  as 
promptly  as  we  might.  We  accordingly  did  so. 
But  we  had  had  time  to  take  in  a  curious  scene. 

The  patrol  boat  lay  to  under  the  big  black 
stern  of  a  steamer.  There  was  a  buoy  near  by, 
and  a  covey  of  lighters,  and  the  current  slapped 
past  them  in  the  stillness.  Beside  the  police 
boat  was  another  rowboat,  one  of  the  sandals 
that  ferry  you  back  and  forth  across  the  har 
bour.  In  the  light  of  an  electric  spark  we  saw 
a  patrolman  handcuffing  the  boatman  of  the 
sandal — a  big  black  Laz  who  evidently  did  not 
like  it — and  the  sprawling  legs  of  a  passenger 
at  the  stern.  Then  the  light  travelled  up  him 
and  we  saw  he  was  lying  flat  back  across  the 
stern  thwart,  dead.  And  I  recognized  him  with 
a  jump  as  the  frowzy  red  soldier  I  had  seen  that 
afternoon  at  Mahmoud  Pasha.  It  gave  me 
something  more  to  think  about.  I  looked  for 
the  man  of  the  parcel,  but  I  didn't  see  him. 
What  I  did  see  was  another  parcel,  a  big  one, 
which  the  patrolman  turned  his  attention  to 
when  he  had  handed  the  Laz  over  to  his  com 
panions.  The  bundle  was  done  up  in  canvas, 
which  the  patrolman  ripped  open  with  his  knife. 
In  the  gash  appeared  something  green. 

"Smuggling?"  I  asked,  as  we  started  back. 

"Eh,"  answered  the  man  who  had  spoken  be- 


322        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

fore,  "smuggling,  deserting.  It  is  nothing." 
And  he  turned  to  the  man  in  the  sandal.  "Never 
mind  now  what  is  in  the  bundle.  We  can  attend 
to  that  when  we  get  back." 

"If  you  find  an  old  gun,"  I  shouted,  "let  me 
know.  Thieves  broke  into  my  place  last  night." 

The  Angry  Kitten  sputtered  away  toward 
Top  Haneh.  There  was  talk  and  speculation  of 
course,  and  one  Turkish  soldier  more  or  less 
made  no  essential  difference  to  us.  But  I 
couldn't  get  the  scene  out  of  my  head — the 
stern  of  the  steamer  half  visible  in  the  dark, 
the  huddled  lighters,  the  two  boats,  the  stoop 
ing  figures,  and  the  ghastly  soldier  with  the 
frowzy  red  moustache. 

Ill 

The  next  morning  a  messenger  came  to  me 
from  the  Prefect  of  the  Port  and  asked  if  I 
would  be  good  enough  to  go  to  his  headquarters. 
Under  ordinary  circumstances,  of  course,  the 
Prefect  would  give  himself  the  pleasure  of  com 
ing  to  me ;  but  the  circumstances  were  not  quite 
ordinary,  and  if  I  could  find  it  in  me  to  waive 
ceremony — and  so  on.  I  was  only  too  willing  to 
go  if  the  expedition  would  result,  as  I  felt  sure 
it  would,  in  the  recovery  of  my  Cesarini.  More 
over,  I  wanted  to  find  out  more  about  the  affair, 
and  I  thought  I  might  be  able  to  contribute  a 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        323 

thread  or  two.  I  went  down  at  once  to  the  Pre 
fecture  of  the  Port,  where  I  was  received  with 
extreme  courtesy,  taken  into  an  inner  sanctum, 
put  into  an  uncomfortable  red  arm-chair,  and 
treated  to  coffee  and  a  catechism  on  the  latest 
and  most  fantastic  rumours  of  the  war.  You 
may  be  sure  it  was  with  some  impatience  that  I 
submitted  to  it.  But  I  have  discovered  that  out 
here  it  pays  to  be  a  little  diplomatic.  By  con 
forming  to  the  customs  of  the  country,  espe 
cially  in  small  matters  of  etiquette,  you  arrive 
at  matters  more  essential  sooner  than  by  any 
Anglo-Saxon  brusqueness. 

Well,  when  coffee  and  politics  were  disposed 
of  at  last  and  cigarettes  were  well  going,  the 
Prefect  excused  himself  a  moment  and  retired 
to  a  small  inner  cupboard  of  a  room.  From  it  he 
brought  back,  not  my  Cesarini,  as  I  expected, 
but  an  old  dagger — of  which  the  gold  haft  was 
tipped  with  a  stupendous  emerald.  It  was  so 
huge  that  it  looked  like  green  glass;  but  why 
should  anybody  take  the  trouble  to  set  green 
glass  on  such  a  dagger?  The  gold  of  the  sheath 
was  beautifully  wrought  with  little  arabesques 
and  flowers,  and  in  the  curved  steel  of  the  blade 
was  a  gold  marquetry  inscription — a  Persian 
distich,  as  I  presently  made  out. 

"Is  that  yours  ?"  inquired  the  Prefect,  politely 
handing  me  the  dagger. 


324        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

"Good  heavens,  no !"  I  replied.  "I  only  wish 
it  were!  It  was  a  gun  I  lost.  Didn't  you 
find  it?" 

"Ah !"  he  said,  apparently  disappointed.  "Un 
fortunately  not."  And  he  added :  "We  heard  it 
was  a  weapon.  We  thought,  possibly " 

Tableau !  It  seemed  to  me  delightfully  char 
acteristic  of  police  in  general  and  of  Turkish 
police  in  particular.  What  they  thought,  heaven 
knows.  Did  they  think  that  any  American  had 
such  treasures  to  lose  as  that  dagger?  I  have 
always  thought,  at  any  rate,  that  I  was  an  ass 
not  to  claim  it.  But  after  the  first  instant  of 
surprise  I  knew  what  the  thing  was  and  where 
it  came  from.  It  stupefied  me  that  they  should 
not  know  too. 

"It  belongs  much  more  to  you  than  to  me,"  I 
said.  "It  came  from  the  Treasury  of  the 
Seraglio." 

"The  Treasury!"  he  smiled.     "Impossible!" 

"Everything  is  possible  in  this  world,  my 
dear  sir,"  I  retorted — "even  that  a  Turk  should 
not  know  the  dagger  of  Sultan  Selim  the  Grim 
when  he  sees  it.  But  if  you  don't  believe  me, 
send  for  Said  Bey." 

Said  Bey  is  the  curator  of  the  Seraglio,  and  a 
charming  old  boy.  My  heart  warmed  to  him 
from  the  day  I  saw  him  superintending  the  cut 
ting  down  of  a  dead  cypress  near  the  library  of 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        325 

the  palace,  in  such  a  way  that  it  should  not 
injure  the  marble  of  the  kiosque  or  the  smallest 
twig  of  neighbouring  cypresses.  And  he  in 
stantly  planted  another  one  in  exactly  the  same 
place. 

The  Prefect  of  the  Port  sent,  not  for  Said  Bey 
but  for  a  colleague,  with  whom  he  gravely 
deliberated.  Then  they  produced  for  my  in 
spection  an  enormous  piece  of  embroidery — 
flowers  in  colours  and  gold  on  white  satin.  It 
was  the  sort  of  thing  you  see  on  good  Bulgarian 
towels,  but  better  than  anything  I  ever  saw  or 
dreamed  of.  It  was  lined,  I  noticed,  with  a  thick 
green  silk. 

"Ah !"  I  said.  "Is  that  what  the  things  were 
wrapped  up  in?" 

"Yes.    Is  it  from  the  Treasury,  too?" 

That  particular  piece  I  didn't  remember, 
although  I  had  seen  other  things  like  it.  But  I 
did  remember  a  certain  gold  Greek  coin  that  I 
had  often  envied,  with  a  galloping  quadriga  on 
the  reverse.  There  were  a  dozen  or  so  fine  coins. 
They  also  trotted  out  an  aigrette  set  in  rubies 
and  diamonds,  such  as  the  sultans  used  to  wear 
on  the  front  of  their  turbans,  and  a  robe  or  two 
of  magnificent  old  stuff,  and  some  gold  filigree 
zarfs — coffee-cup  holders — studded  with  pre 
cious  stones,  and  pieces  of  porcelain  similarly 
decorated,  to  say  nothing  of  handfuls  of  loose 


326        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

jewels.  Even  if  I  had  not  been  perfectly  sure 
about  the  dagger  and  the  coin,  the  other  things 
would  have  left  me  with  not  the  slightest  doubt. 
They  could  have  come  only  from  the  Seraglio — 
though  the  merest  fraction  of  a  fraction  of  what 
is  lost  in  that  amazing  place. 

How  they  got  into  a  sandal  in  the  harbour, 
however,  remained  obscure  even  when  the  Pre 
fect  of  the  Port  and  I  compared  our  respective 
notes  on  the  red-haired  man  and  his  dark  friend. 
I  only  learned  that  the  former  had  been  shot  by 
accident,  after  the  police  hailed  him  and  he 
refused  to  stop.  Nor  did  the  Treasury  people, 
when  they  appeared  on  the  scene,  throw  much 
more  light  on  the  subject.  The  red-haired  man, 
whose  body  they  were  taken  to  look  at,  they 
knew  nothing  about.  My  man  sounded  like  any 
one  of  several  of  their  employees  who  had  at 
different  times  enlisted  or  been  drafted  for  the 
war.  They  asked  me  to  see  if  I  could  identify 
him  among  those  who  remained ;  but  he  was  not 
there.  The  only  possible  explanation  of  the 
robbery  was  that  it  had  been  committed  during 
the  hasty  packing  up  of  the  treasures,  against 
the  arrival  of  General  Savoff. 

Said  Bey's  astonishment  and  chagrin  were 
unbounded  when  he  identified  the  loot  at  the 
Prefecture  of  the  Port.  But  it  was  nearly  the 
end  of  him  when  he  eventually  found  out  that 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        327 

the  loss  was  much  greater  than  could  be  cov 
ered  by  the  bundle  of  the  sandal.  And,  worst 
of  all,  one  of  the  missing  objects  was  one  of  the 
glories  of  the  Treasury — the  matchless,  the 
priceless  pearl  necklace  of  the  Seraglio,  the  one 
picturesquely  known  as  the  River  of  the  Moon. 
The  like  of  it,  I  suppose,  does  not  exist  any 
where  else  in  the  world.  Modern  millionaires 
may  have  as  much  money  as  ancient  emperors, 
but  they  have,  after  all,  more  conscience  and 
less  imagination.  And  certainly  few  necklaces 
have  had  such  a  history.  The  River  of  the  Moon 
first  came  to  light  in  Ispahan,  where  Shah 
Abbas  the  Great  collected  its  seventy-seven 
enormous  pearls  and  hung  them  around  the 
neck  of  one  of  his  queens.  A  hundred  years 
later  Sultan  Mourad  IV  brought  it  in  triumph  to 
Constantinople  among  the  spoil  of  his  Persian 
wars.  Sultanas  wore  it  and  sighed  for  it  in  the 
Seraglio.  In  our  own  time  Abd-ul-Hamid,  that 
great  lover  and  connoisseur  of  jewels,  took  it  to 
Yildiz — with  a  good  many  other  things  he  had 
no  personal  right  to.  When  his  jewels  were  sent 
to  Paris  to  be  sold,  the  River  of  the  Moon  went 
with  them,  by  mistake,  and  a  special  embassy 
was  sent  to  bring  it  back — to  the  no  small  dis 
gust  of  the  people  in  Paris.  And  now  it  was 
gone — no  one  knew  where. 

I  believe  that  Said  Bey  would  have  preferred 


328        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

that  the  empire  had  gone.  He  begged  me  to  say 
nothing  till  the  fullest  possible  investigation 
could  be  made.  Of  course  I  told  him,  too,  my 
part  of  the  story,  and  showed  him  my  bit  of 
figured  silk.  He  said  that  it  was  very  good,  but 
didn't  come  from  the  Treasury.  I  could  not 
help  wondering,  however,  if  I  had  been  a  re 
ceiver  of  stolen  goods,  and  if  I  had  not  held  in 
my  hand,  without  knowing  it,  the  River  of  the 
Moon. 

IV 

So  I  didn't  get  my  Cesarini  back  that  time. 
That,  to  me,  was  the  more  important  loss, 
though  for  the  rest  of  them  it  was  of  course  for 
gotten  in  the  greater  loss  of  the  Treasury.  But 
I  did  get  it  in  the  end,  as  you  see.  It  was  a  long 
time  afterward,  when  the  war  was  over,  and  the 
international  squadron  had  gone,  and  the  young 
ladies  in  Pera  were  married  to  their  officers,  and 
the  rest  of  us  settled  down  to  the  humdrum 
treadmill  of  life.  I  used  to  go  over  to  the 
Bezesten  every  now  and  then  and  interview  my 
friend  Hassan  Effendi.  He  never  got  wind  of 
my  gun.  He  was  indefatigable,  however,  in  try 
ing  to  console  me  with  other  antiques,  of  one 
kind  or  another.  And  I  can't  say  that  I  was 
always  strong-minded  enough  to  resist  him. 

He  told  me  one  day  about  an  "occasion"  he 
had  heard  of.  There  was  a  refugee  woman  over 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        329 

in  Scutari  somewhere  who  had  a  few  things  to 
sell.  They  were  quite  good,  he  heard — if  any 
of  them  were  left.  The  lady's  husband  had 
been  a  great  man  in  his  country,  in  Macedonia, 
and  they  had  been  ruined  by  the  war.  If  I  liked 
to  go  with  him  and  see  what  there  was  to  see,  a 
man  he  knew  would  take  us. 

I  jumped  at  the  chance.  Some  of  my  friends 
who  did  relief  work  among  the  refugees  picked 
up  very  decent  things — embroideries  chiefly — 
at  ridiculous  prices.  It  was  a  charity  to  the 
poor  creatures  to  take  them  off  their  hands! 
Accordingly  I  arranged  with  Hassan  Effendi  to 
call  his  man  and  take  me  over  on  the  next  Fri 
day,  when  the  Bezesten  would  be  closed. 

We  had  quite  a  time.  The  house  was  at  the 
top  of  the  town,  near  the  big  cemetery.  Our 
guide  made  us  leave  the  carriage  before  we  got 
to  it,  saying  that  the  street  was  too  narrow  and 
too  badly  paved  to  drive  through.  When  we 
reached  the  door  we  knocked  an  age  before  any 
one  answered,  and  then  there  was  discreet  call 
ing  to  know  who  we  were  and  what  we  wanted, 
and  much  flipflapping  of  slippers;  and  finally 
the  door  opened  six  inches  and  we  squeezed 
into  a  little  court  with  a  well  and  half  a  dozen 
chrysanthemum  pots.  We  took  off  our  shoes 
and  walked  up  a  clean  little  pair  of  stairs  into  a 
clean  little  room  where  there  was  a  divan  and  a 


330        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

charcoal  brazier  and  a  cat — not  an  angry  one. 
We  sat  down  on  the  divan  and  played  with  the 
cat,  and  presently  the  door  opened  far  enough  to 
admit  a  tray  and  three  cups  of  coffee.  In  the 
course  of  time  the  tray  was  passed  back  and 
parley  exchanged  with  a  preternaturally  high 
voice.  Old-fashioned  Turkish  ladies  affect  that 
tone.  And  after  hesitations,  and  assurances 
that  there  was  nothing  in  the  house  worth  look 
ing  at,  what  should  I  see  poked  through  the 
crack  of  the  door  but  my  Cesarini ! 

Hassan  Effendi,  being  nearest  the  door,  took 
it.  As  for  me,  I  was  so  surprised  that  I  had 
time  to  remember  to  hold  my  tongue.  When 
Hassan  Effendi  put  the  gun  into  my  hands  I 
saw  that  it  had  been  badly  used.  It  was  rusty 
and  battered,  and  there  seemed  something  un 
familiar  about  it.  But  there  could  be  no  doubt 
of  its  being  my  Cesarini.  Before  I  had  finished 
looking  it  over,  our  invisible  hostess  sidled  into 
the  room.  She  went  to  the  brazier  and  poked  it 
a  bit  with  those  funny  little  iron  tongs  they 
have,  and  then  she  flopped  down  on  the  floor. 
If  there  was  to  be  a  bargain  I  suppose  she 
wanted  to  have  a  hand  in  it.  All  we  saw  of  her 
was  a  pair  of  rather  fine  black  eyes  and  a  hand 
with  henna'ed  nails  that  held  her  shabby  black 
charshaf  in  front  of  her  mouth. 

"This  is  rather  an  interesting  old  piece  of 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        331 

yours,  Hanim"  I  remarked.  "May  I  ask  where 
you  got  it?" 

"It  belonged  to  my  husband,"  she  answered  in 
her  strange  high  voice.  "He  went  to  the  war." 
And  she  jerked  her  charshaf  up  to  her  fine  eyes, 
which  filled  with  tears. 

They  did  not  soften  me  too  much. 

"This  does  not  seem  to  be  Turkish  work,"  I 
went  on. 

"I  am  a  refugee,"  came  from  behind  the  char 
shaf.  "We  lived  in  Uskiib.  The  work  there  is 
different.  There  are  many  Albanians." 

"Oh !"  I  exclaimed.  I  knew  the  thing  to  do 
was  to  buy  back  the  gun  and  go  quietly  away 
and  call  the  police,  but  an  irresistible  tempta 
tion  came  to  me.  I  got  up  as  if  to  examine  the 
gun  in  a  better  light.  I  stayed  up,  in  front  of 
the  door.  "Excuse  me,  Hamm,"  I  began,  "but 
did  your  husband  have  red  hair?  I  think  I 
knew  him  a  little." 

The  charshaf  descended  far  enough  to  reveal 
one  of  the  fine  eyes. 

"No !"  the  owner  of  it,  after  a  moment,  very 
decidedly  replied. 

"Ah !  Then  it  was  your  husband  who  took  the 
parcel  to  a  house  in  Pera.  He  did  not  say  he 
came  from  Uskub." 

The  fine  eye  regarded  me  very  fixedly,  and  I 
regarded  the  fine  eye. 


332        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

"Perhaps  you  did  not  know,"  I  hazarded, 
"that  this  gun  came  from  the  same  house,  and 
was  taken  from  it  on  the  same  night  as  the  par 
cel.  Perhaps  you  thought  it  came  from  the — 
place  where  the  other  things  came  from." 

It  seemed  to  me  that  the  fine  eye  measured 
the  relative  distances  of  itself  and  myself  from 
the  door.  At  all  events  it  presently  disap 
peared  behind  the  charshaf  for  inward  consid 
eration. 

"But  there  are  one  or  two  things  I  don't 
understand,"  I  pursued — "such  as  how  your 
husband  got  the  gun.  For  he  was  not  in  the 
boat  when  the  red-haired  man — died,  and 
neither  was  the  gun." 

Hassan  Effendi  and  the  other  man  began  to 
show  such  signs  of  interest  in  this  somewhat 
one-sided  dialogue  that  I  regretted  having 
started  it.  As  for  the  fine  eye,  it  still  remained 
in  seclusion.  But  the  high  voice  finally  vouch 
safed,  in  defense : 

"That  was  not  the  work  of  my  husband.  The 
other  man  threw  it  into  a  lighter  just  be 
fore " 

"Ah !"  I  exclaimed,  a  light  breaking  upon  me. 
"Then  there  were  two  bundles !  And  that  was 
what  happened  to  the  necklace!" 

Both  eyes  emerged  from  the  charshaf. 

"No,  they  got  that." 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        333 

"No,  they  didn't  get  that,"  I  contradicted. 
"They  are  still  looking  for  it." 

The  fine  eyes  stared  so  indubitably  that  I 
wondered  if  my  light  had  been  a  false  one. 
Then  another  light  came  into  them. 

"So  he  would  have  lost  it  after  all,  the  dog- 
born  dog!  It  was  all  his  work.  My  husband 
never  would  have  thought  of  it  without  him. 
And  afterward  he  watched  my  husband  go  to 
Pera,  and  he  stole  that  thing  too.  And  then  he 
tried  to  run  away " 

The  light  in  the  fine  eyes  darkened  to  sud 
den  tears,  and  this  time  sobs  shook  the  charshaf 
that  covered  them.  I  could  see  well  enough  now 
what  had  happened — though  the  woman  had 
not  told  me  all  that  it  might  be  interesting  to 
know  about  her  husband  and  the  red-haired 
man,  and  there  were  details  of  the  history  of  the 
gun  during  its  journey  from  the  lighter  to  my 
hands  that  might  be  filled  out  in  several  ways. 
But  I  was  an  idiot  to  try  the  third  degree  myself 
— and  bungle  it ;  for  it  would  be  harder  now  to 
get  the  police,  or  for  them  to  find  out  just  who 
our  guide  might  be.  He  sat  there  quietly 
enough  while  the  woman  cried  on  the  floor  and 
I  stood  in  front  of  the  door  and  wondered  if  the 
River  of  the  Moon  were  around  her  neck  all  the 
time,  or  whether  the  red-haired  man  had  got  rid 
of  it,  and  what  I  ought  to  do. 


334        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

I  fingered  the  gun  as  I  wondered,  trying  not 
to  look  as  much  of  a  fool  as  I  felt.  Incidentally 
I  found  out  why  the  gun  had  seemed  unfamiliar. 
It  was  heavier  than  I  remembered  it.  And  then 
I  discovered  that  it  was  loaded.  At  least,  some 
kind  of  wadding  had  been  rammed  into  the  bar 
rel.  I  started  picking  at  it,  as  well  as  I  could 
from  the  bell  mouth.  In  the  end,  you  know,  it 
wasn't  pure  nervousness.  It  was  pure  inspira 
tion.  When  I  couldn't  get  my  hand  in  any 
farther  I  took  the  tongs  from  the  brazier.  The 
last  of  the  stuff  was  jammed  in  pretty  hard. 
But  those  blessed  little  tongs  were  just  the 
thing  for  it.  And  finally  out  rolled  a  prodigious 
pearl,  and  after  it  rolled  a  whole  river  of  them 
— the  River  of  the  Moon ! 

The  sudden  patter  of  the  pearls  on  the  floor 
made  the  woman  look  up.  And  what  a  look  it 
was,  as  the  poor  wretch  realized  what  had  been 
in  her  hands  and  what  she  had  lost !  To  be  sure 
she  began  grabbing  up  the  pearls  as  fast  as  she 
could.  And  so  did  Hassan  Eff  endi  and  the  other 
man.  You  should  have  seen  the  scramble.  Even 
the  cat  went  for  them,  and  thought  it  great 
fun.  I  stopped  the  patter  as  soon  as  I  could, 
and  emptied  the  rest  of  the  pearls  into  my 
handkerchief.  Hassan  Effendi  put  his  there 
too. 

"And  you?"  I  said,  turning  to  our  guide. 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        335 

"Excuse  me,  Effendim"  he  began,  "you 
bought  the  gun,  not  the  pearls." 

I  gave  him  a  look  and  an  answer. 

"I  have  bought  nothing  yet.  This  is  my  own 
gun,  which  was  stolen  from  my  house.  And 
these  pearls  were  stolen  too — from  the  Sultan. 
And  the  Sultan's  arm  is  long.  And  if  you  say 
one  word,  or  refuse  to  give  back  one  pearl,  Has 
san  Eff endi  has  only  to  clap  his  hands  and  fifty 
men  will  break  into  the  house." 

I  don't  know  whether  he  believed  me  or  not. 
But  he  saw  that  I  knew  more  than  he  had 
thought,  and  Hassan  Eff  endi  had  the  grace  not 
to  look  astonished.  The  man  put  down  his 
pearls.  The  woman  did  likewise. 

"Now  tell  me,"  I  said  to  her,  "have  you  any 
thing  else?" 

"No,"  she  answered. 

"I  suppose  you  have  sold  the  rest,  eh?" 

"No,  vallah!".  she  insisted.  "If  there  was 
anything,  the  lightermen  took  it.  We  heard 
there  was  talk  among  them  and  we  went  to 

them.  We  knew And  then  my  husband 

went  away,"  she  continued  hastily,  "and  they 
brought  me  only  this  gun." 

She  covered  her  face  again  and  began  to  cry. 

There  was  something  queer  about  it.  But  I 
had  found  my  Cesarini,  and  the  River  of  the 
Moon,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  woman  was 


336        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

punished  enough — and  for  what  very  likely  was 
not  her  fault.  Neither  she  nor  her  husband,  at 
all  events,  had  stolen  my  gun.  Accordingly  I 
offered  her  a  tip,  which  she  wouldn't  take.  So  I 
put  it  down  on  the  sofa,  and  patted  the  cat,  and 
gave  our  guide  a  bit  of  a  scare  by  making  him 
come  away  with  Hassan  Effendi  and  me. 

But,  really,  you  know — !  Of  course  it  is  a 
notorious  thing  that  collectors  have  no  con 
sciences,  and  will  rob  the  fatherless  and  the 
widow  without  turning  a  hair,  if  so  be  they  can 
cheat  them  over  the  price — of  an  old  print.  I 
did  it  myself  no  later  than  last  week,  when  I 
came  across  some  Piranesis  at  the  sale  of  the 
goods  of  a  deceased  Italian  barber,  whose  family 
were  going  home.  They  were  real  ones,  too,  and 
not  the  reprints  the  Italian  government  has 
made  from  Piranesi's  plates.  Not  many  other 
people  thought  it  worth  while  to  go  to  a  barber's 
sale,  and  the  ones  that  did  thought  nothing  of 
some  black  old  pictures  of  an  unfamiliar  Rome. 
Our  good  Perotes,  you  know,  are  not  very  much 
up  on  that  sort  of  thing.  So  I  had  the  courage 
to  march  away  with  the  ten  of  them  at  five 
piasters  apiece.  But  until  I  looked  at  those 
pearls  by  myself  at  home  I  never  realized  how 
shallow-rooted  a  virtue  honesty  may  be.  If  I 
hadn't  taken  such  a  high  moral  tone  about 
them,  and,  especially,  if  three  people  and  a  cat 


THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON        337 

didn't  know  I  had  them,  I  don't  believe  I  could 
have  given  them  back. 

They  were  perfectly  lovely  in  themselves,  like 
great  drops  of  crystallized  moonlight.  And  it 
was  so  strange  to  hold  them  in  one's  hand,  and 
wonder  what  divers  first  brought  them  out  of 
the  Persian  Gulf  or  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  by 
what  extraordinary  roads  they  had  come  to 
gether  in  Ispahan,  and  on  what  soft  breasts 
they  had  lain,  and  what  splendour  and  blood  and 
mystery  they  had  seen.  Each  one  of  them  must 
have  been  fatal  to  some  hand  that  had  held  it. 
And  each  one  of  them  was  the  equivalent  of  so 
much  release  from  struggle  and  anxiety,  the 
equivalent  of  so  much  leisure,  so  much  beauty, 
so  much  joy,  so  much  of  everything  that  people 
really  want  in  this  world — each  one!  While 

the  whole  lot  of  them It  made  one's  head 

turn. 

When  I  came  to  count  them  I  discovered  there 
was  one  missing.  I  couldn't  find  it  in  my  pocket, 
I  couldn't  find  it  in  my  gun,  I  couldn't  find  it 
anywhere.  I  finally  concluded  that  it  must  have 
rolled  under  the  sofa  in  Scutari,  and  I  nearly 
rushed  back  to  get  it.  But  then  I  remembered 
how  the  woman  had  looked  when  she  saw  the 
pearls  dropping  out  of  the  gun.  I  had  a  fellow 
feeling  for  her.  I  knew  in  my  heart  that  it  was 
only  an  accident  if  I  was  any  better  than  she. 


338        THE  RIVER  OF  THE  MOON 

I  decided  to  give  her  and  the  cat  the  chance  of 
finding  it. 

The  first  thing  the  next  morning,  I  took  the 
River  of  the  Moon  back  to  Said  Bey.  It  was  not 
safe  with  me  an  instant  longer.  The  old  boy 
nearly  went  silly  when  he  saw  the  pearls.  He 
knew  every  one  by  its  size  and  weight  and  some 
invisible  individuality.  He  was  so  delighted  to 
get  the  seventy-six  that  he  made  no  bones  about 
the  seventy-seventh,  or  my  cock-and-bull  story 
of  having  promised  on  his  behalf  that  no  ques 
tions  should  be  asked.  I  did  drop  a  discreet 
hint,  though,  about  the  guild  of  the  lightermen. 

They  made  quite  an  international  incident  of 
it — not  the  lightermen,  but  the  Palace  people. 
They  gave  me  a  decoration.  But  I  thought  the 
woman  in  Scutari  had  the  best  of  the  bargain. 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

At  the  old  gentleman's  side  sat  a  young  lady  more 
beautiful  than  pomegranate  blossoms,  more  exquisite 
than  the  first  quarter  moon  viewed  at  twilight  through 
the  tops  of  oleanders. 

— O.  Henry:  THE  TRIMMED  LAMP. 


AS  THE  caique  glided  up  to  the  garden 
gate  the  three  boatmen  rose  from  their 
sheepskins  and  caught  hold  of  iron 
clamps  set  into  the  marble  of  the  quay.  Shaban, 
the  grizzled  gatekeeper,  who  was  standing  at 
the  top  of  the  water-steps  with  his  hands  folded 
respectfully  in  front  of  him,  came  salaaming 
down  to  help  his  master  out. 

"Shall  we  wait,  my  Pasha?"  asked  the  head 
kaikji. 

The  Pasha  turned  to  Shaban,  as  if  to  put  a 
question.  And  as  if  to  answer  it  Shaban  said : 

"The  Madama  is  up  in  the  wood,  in  the 
kiosque.  She  sent  down  word  to  ask  if  you 
would  go  up  too." 

"Then  don't  wait."  Returning  the  boatmen's 
salaam,  the  Pasha  stepped  into  his  garden.  "Is 

339 


340         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

there  company  in  the  kiosque  or  is  Madama 
alone  ?"  he  inquired. 

"I  think  no  one  is  there — except  Ziimbul 
Agha,"  replied  Shaban,  following  his  master 
up  the  long  central  path  of  black  and  white 
pebbles. 

"Ziimbul  Agha !"  exclaimed  the  Pasha.  But 
if  it  had  been  in  his  mind  to  say  anything  else 
he  stooped  instead  to  sniff  at  a  rosebud.  And 
then  he  asked:  "Are  we  dining  up  there,  do 
you  know?" 

"I  don't  know,  my  Pasha,  but  I  will  find 
out." 

"Tell  them  to  send  up  dinner  anyway,  Sha 
ban.  It  is  such  an  evening!  And  just  ask 
Moustafa  to  bring  me  a  coffee  at  the  fountain, 
will  you?  I  will  rest  a  little  before  climbing 
that  hill." 

"On  my  head !"  said  the  Albanian,  turning  off 
to  the  house. 

The  Pasha  kept  on  to  the  end  of  the  walk. 
Two  big  horse-chestnut  trees,  their  candles  just 
starting  alight  in  the  April  air,  stood  there  at 
the  foot  of  a  terrace,  guarding  a  fountain  that 
dripped  in  the  ivied  wall.  A  thread  of  water 
started  mysteriously  out  of  the  top  of  a  tall 
marble  niche  into  a  little  marble  basin,  from 
which  it  overflowed  by  two  flat  bronze  spouts 
into  two  smaller  basins  below.  From  them  the 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    341 

water  dripped  back  into  a  single  basin  still  lower 
down,  and  so  tinkled  its  broken  way,  past  grace 
ful  arabesques  and  reliefs  of  fruit  and  flowers, 
into  a  crescent-shaped  pool  at  the  foot  of  the 
niche. 

The  Pasha  sank  down  into  one  of  the  wicker 
chairs  scattered  hospitably  beneath  the  horse- 
chestnut  trees,  and  thought  how  happy  a  man 
he  was  to  have  a  fountain  of  the  period  of 
Sultan  Ahmed  III,  and  a  garden  so  full  of  April 
freshness,  and  a  view  of  the  bright  Bosphorus 
and  the  opposite  hills  of  Europe  and  the  firing 
West.  How  definitely  he  thought  it  I  cannot 
say,  for  the  Pasha  was  not  greatly  given  to 
thought.  Why  should  he  be,  since  he  possessed 
without  that  trouble  a  goodly  share  of  what 
men  acquire  by  taking  thought  ?  If  he  had  been 
lapped  in  ease  and  security  all  his  days,  they 
numbered  many  more,  did  those  days,  than  the 
Pasha  would  have  chosen.  Still,  they  had 
touched  him  but  lightly,  merely  increasing  the 
dignity  of  his  handsome  presence  and  taking 
away  nothing  of  his  power  to  enjoy  his  little 
walled  world. 

So  he  sat  there,  breathing  in  the  air  of  the 
place  and  the  hour,  while  gardeners  came  and 
went  with  their  watering-pots,  and  birds  twit 
tered  among  the  branches,  and  the  fountain 
plashed  beside  him,  until  Shaban  reappeared 


342         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

carrying  a  glass  of  water  and  a  cup  of  coffee  in 
a  swinging  tray. 

"Eh,  Shaban !  It  is  not  your  business  to  carry 
coffee!"  protested  the  Pasha,  reaching  for  a 
stand  that  stood  near  him. 

"What  is  your  business  is  my  business, 
Pasha  'm.  Have  I  not  eaten  your  bread  and 
your  father's  for  thirty  years?" 

"No !  Is  it  as  long  as  that  ?  We  are  getting 
old,  Shaban." 

"We  are  getting  old,"  assented  the  Albanian 
simply. 

The  Pasha  thought,  as  he  took  out  his  silver 
cigarette-case,  of  another  Pasha  who  had  com 
plimented  him  that  afternoon  on  his  youthful- 
ness.  And,  choosing  a  cigarette,  he  handed  the 
case  to  his  gatekeeper.  Shaban  accepted  the 
cigarette  and  produced  matches  from  his  gay 
girdle. 

"How  long  is  it  since  you  have  been  to  your 
country,  Shaban?" 

The  Pasha,  lifting  his  little  cup  by  its  silver 
zarf,  realized  that  he  would  not  have  sipped  his 
coffee  quite  so  noisily  had  his  French  wife  been 
sitting  with  him  under  the  horse-chestnut  trees. 
But  with  his  old  Shaban  he  could  still  be  a 
Turk. 

"Eighteen  months,  my  Pasha." 

"And  when  are  you  going  again?" 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    343 

"In  Ramazan,  if  God  wills.  Or  perhaps  next 
Ramazan.  We  shall  see." 

"Allah  Allah!  How  many  times  have  I  told 
you  to  bring  your  people  here,  Shaban?  We 
have  plenty  of  room  to  build  you  a  house  some 
where,  and  you  could  see  your  wife  and  children 
every  day  instead  of  once  in  two  or  three  years." 

"Wives,  mives — a  man  will  not  die  if  he  does 
not  see  them  every  day !  Besides,  it  would  not 
be  good  for  the  children.  In  Constantinople 
they  become  rascals.  There  are  too  many  Chris 
tians."  And  he  added  hastily :  "It  is  better  for 
a  boy  to  grow  up  in  the  mountains." 

"But  we  have  a  mountain  here,  behind  the 
house,"  laughed  the  Pasha. 

"Your  mountain  is  not  like  our  mountains," 
objected  Shaban  gravely,  hunting  in  his  mind 
for  the  difference  he  felt  but  could  not  express. 

"And  that  new  wife  of  yours,"  went  on  the 
Pasha.  "Is  it  good  to  leave  a  young  woman  like 
that?  Are  you  not  afraid?" 

"No,  my  Pasha.  I  am  not  afraid.  We  all  live 
together,  you  know.  My  brothers  watch,  and 
the  other  women.  She  is  safer  than  yours. 
Besides,  in  my  country  it  is  not  as  it  is  here." 

"I  don't  know  why  I  have  never  been  to  see 
this  wonderful  country  of  yours,  Shaban.  I 
have  so  long  intended  to,  and  I  never  have  been. 
But  I  must  climb  my  mountain  or  they  will 


344         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

think  I  have  become  a  rascal  too."  And,  rising 
from  his  chair,  he  gave  the  Albanian  a  friendly 
pat. 

"Shall  I  come  too,  my  Pasha?  Ziimbiil  Agha 
sent  word " 

"Ziimbul  Agha !"  interrupted  the  Pasha  irri 
tably.  "No,  you  needn't  come.  I  will  explain 
to  Zumbiil  Agha." 

With  which  he  left  Shaban  to  pick  up  the 
empty  coffee  cup. 

II 

From  the  upper  terrace  a  bridge  led  across 
the  public  road  to  the  wood.  If  it  was  not  a 
wood  it  was  at  all  events  a  good-sized  grove, 
climbing  the  steep  hillside  very  much  as  it 
chose.  Every  sort  and  size  of  tree  was  there, 
but  the  greater  number  of  them  were  of  a  kind 
to  be  sparsely  trimmed  in  April  with  a  delicate 
green,  and  among  them  were  so  many  twisted 
Judas  trees  as  to  tinge  whole  patches  of  the 
slope  with  their  deep  rose  bloom.  The  road  that 
the  Pasha  slowly  climbed,  swinging  his  amber 
beads  behind  him  as  he  walked,  zigzagged  so 
leisurely  back  and  forth  among  the  trees  that  a 
carriage  could  have  driven  up  it.  In  that  way, 
indeed,  the  Pasha  had  more  than  once  mounted 
to  the  kiosque,  in  the  days  when  his  mother 
used  to  spend  a  good  part  of  her  summer  up 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    345 

there,  and  when  he  was  married  to  his  first 
wife.  The  memory  of  the  two,  and  of  their  old- 
fashioned  ways,  entered  not  too  bitterly  into  his 
general  feeling  of  well-being,  ministered  to  by 
the  budding  trees  and  the  spring  air  and  the 
sunset  view.  Every  now  and  then  an  enormous 
plane  tree  invited  him  to  stop  and  look  at  it,  or 
a  semi-circle  of  cypresses. 

So  at  last  he  came  to  the  top  of  the  hill, 
where  in  a  grassy  clearing  a  small  house  looked 
down  on  the  valley  of  the  Bosphorus  through  a 
row  of  great  stone  pines.  The  door  of  the 
kiosque  was  open,  but  his  wife  was  not  visible. 
The  Pasha  stopped  a  moment,  as  he  had  done  a 
thousand  times  before,  and  looked  back.  He 
was  not  the  man  to  be  insensible  to  what  he  saw 
between  the  columnar  trunks  of  the  pines, 
where  European  hills  traced  a  dark  curve 
against  the  fading  sky,  and  where  the  sinuous 
waterway  far  below  still  reflected  a  last  glamour 
of  the  day.  The  beauty  of  it,  and  the  sharp 
sweetness  of  the  April  air,  and  the  infinitesimal 
sounds  of  the  wood,  and  the  half-conscious 
memories  involved  with  it  all,  made  him  sigh. 
He  turned  and  mounted  the  steps  of  the  porch. 

The  kiosque  looked  very  dark  and  unfamiliar 
as  the  Pasha  entered  it.  He  wondered  what  had 
become  of  Helene — if  by  any  chance  he  had 
passed  her  on  the  way.  He  wanted  her.  She 


346         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

was  the  expression  of  what  the  evening  roused 
in  him.  He  heard  nothing,  however,  but  the 
splash  of  water  from  a  half -invisible  fountain. 
It  reminded  him  for  an  instant  of  the  other 
fountain,  below,  and  of  Shaban.  His  steps  re 
sounded  hollowly  on  the  marble  pavement  as  he 
walked  into  the  dim  old  saloon,  shaped  like  a  T, 
with  the  crossbar  longer  than  the  leg.  It  was 
still  light  enough  for  him  to  make  out  the  glim 
mer  of  windows  on  three  sides  and  the  square 
of  the  fountain  in  the  centre,  but  the  painted 
domes  above  were  lost  in  shadow. 

The  spaces  on  either  side  of  the  bay  by  which 
he  entered,  completing  the  rectangle  of  the 
kiosque,  were  filled  by  two  little  rooms  opening 
into  the  cross  of  the  T.  He  went  into  the  left- 
hand  one,  where  Helene  usually  sat — because 
there  were  no  lattices.  The  room  was  empty. 
The  place  seemed  so  strange  and  still  in  the  twi 
light  that  a  sort  of  apprehension  began  to  grow 
in  him,  and  he  half  wished  he  had  brought  up 
Shaban.  He  turned  back  to  the  second,  the  lat 
ticed  room — the  harem,  as  they  called  it.  Curi 
ously  enough  it  was  Helene  who  would  never  let 
him  Europeanize  it,  in  spite  of  the  lattices. 
Every  now  and  then  he  found  out  that  she  liked 
some  Turkish  things  better  than  he  did.  As 
soon  as  he  opened  the  door  he  saw  her  sitting 
on  the  divan  opposite.  He  knew  her  profile 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    347 

against  the  checkered  pallor  of  the  lattice.  But 
she  neither  moved  nor  greeted  him.  It  was 
Zumbul  Agha  who  did  so,  startling  him  by  sud 
denly  rising  beside  the  door  and  saying  in  his 
high  voice: 

"Pleasant  be  your  coming,  my  Pasha." 

The  Pasha  had  forgotten  about  Zumbul 
Agha;  and  it  seemed  strange  to  him  that 
Helene  continued  to  sit  silent  and  motionless  on 
her  sofa. 

"Good  evening,"  he  said  at  last.  "You  are 
sitting  very  quietly  here  in  the  dark.  Are  there 
no  lights  in  this  place  ?" 

It  was  again  Zumbul  Agha  who  spoke,  turn 
ing  one  question  by  another: 

"Did  Shaban  come  with  you?" 

"No,"  replied  the  Pasha  shortly.  "He  said  he 
had  a  message,  but  I  told  him  not  to  come." 

"A-ah!"  ejaculated  the  eunuch  in  his  high 
drawl.  "But  it  does  not  matter — with  the  two 
of  us." 

The  Pasha  grew  more  and  more  puzzled,  for 
this  was  not  the  scene  he  had  imagined  to  him 
self  as  he  came  up  through  the  park  in  response 
to  his  wife's  message.  Nor  did  he  grow  less 
puzzled  when  the  eunuch  turned  to  her  and  said 
in  another  tone : 

"Now  will  you  give  me  that  key?" 

The  French  woman  took  no  more  notice  of 


348         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

this  question  than  she  had  of  the  Pasha's 
entrance. 

"What  do  you  mean,  Ziimbiil  Agha?"  de 
manded  the  Pasha  sharply.  "That  is  not  the 
way  to  speak  to  your  mistress." 

"I  mean  this,  my  Pasha,"  retorted  the  eunuch 
— "that  some  one  is  hiding  in  this  chest  and 
that  Madama  keeps  the  key." 

That  was  what  the  Pasha  heard,  in  the  absurd 
treble  of  the  black  man,  in  the  darkening  room. 
He  looked  down  and  made  out,  beside  the  tall 
figure  of  the  eunuch,  the  chest  on  which  he  had 
been  sitting.  Then  he  looked  across  at  Helene, 
who  still  sat  silent  in  front  of  the  lattice. 

"What  are  you  talking  about?"  he  asked  at 
last,  more  stupefied  than  anything  else.  "Who 

is  it?  A  thief?  Has  any  one -?"  He  left 

the  vague  question  unformulated,  even  in  his 
mind. 

"Ah,  that  I  don't  know.  You  must  ask 
Madama.  Probably  it  is  one  of  her  Christian 
friends.  But  at  least  if  it  were  a  woman  she 
would  not  be  so  unwilling  to  unlock  her  chest 
for  us!" 

The  silence  that  followed,  while  the  Pasha 
looked  dumbly  at  the  chest,  and  at  Zumbiil 
Agha,  and  at  his  wife,  was  filled  for  him  with  a 
stranger  confusion  of  feelings  than  he  had  ever 
experienced  before.  Nevertheless  he  was  sur- 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    349 

prisingly  cool,  he  found.  His  pulse  quickened 
very  little.  He  told  himself  that  it  wasn't  true 
and  that  he  really  must  get  rid  of  old  Zumbul 
after  all,  if  he  went  on  making  such  preposter 
ous  gaffes  and  setting  them  all  by  the  ears. 
How  could  anything  so  baroque  happen  to  him, 
the  Pasha,  who  owed  what  he  was  to  honour 
able  fathers  and  who  had  passed  his  life  hon 
ourably  and  peaceably  until  this  moment?  Yet 
he  had  had  an  impression,  walking  into  the  dark 
old  kiosque  and  finding  nobody  until  he  found 
these  two  sitting  here  in  this  extraordinary 
way — as  if  he  had  walked  out  of  his  familiar 
garden,  that  he  knew  like  his  hand,  into  a  coun 
try  he  knew  nothing  about,  where  anything 
might  be  true.  And  he  wished,  he  almost 
passionately  wished,  that  Helene  would  say 
something,  would  cry  out  against  Zumbul 
Agha,  would  lie  even,  rather  than  sit  there  so 
still  and  removed  and  different  from  other 
women. 

Then  he  began  to  be  aware  that  if  it  were 
true — if! — he  ought  to  do  something.  He  ought 
to  make  a  noise.  He  ought  to  kill  somebody. 
That  was  what  they  always  did.  That  was 
what  his  father  would  have  done,  or  certainly 
his  grandfather.  But  he  also  told  himself  that 
it  was  no  longer  possible  for  him  to  do  what  his 
father  and  grandfather  had  done.  He  had  been 


350         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

unlearning  their  ways  too  long.  Besides,  he 
was  too  old. 

A  sudden  sting  pierced  him  at  the  thought  of 
how  old  he  was,  and  how  young  Helene.  Even 
if  he  lived  to  be  seventy  or  eighty  she  would 
still  have  a  life  left  when  he  died.  Yes,  it  was 
as  Shaban  said.  They  were  getting  old.  He 
had  never  really  felt  the  humiliation  of  it 
before.  And  Shaban  had  said,  strangely,  some 
thing  else — that  his  own  wife  was  safer  than 
the  Pasha's.  Still  he  felt  an  odd  compassion 
for  Helene,  too — because  she  was  young,  and  it 
was  Judas-tree  time,  and  she  was  married  to 
gray  hairs.  And  although  he  was  a  Pasha, 
descended  from  great  Pashas,  and  she  was  only 
a  little  French  girl  quelconque,  he  felt  more 
afraid  than  ever  of  making  a  fool  of  himself 
before  her — when  he  had  promised  her  that  she 
should  be  as  free  as  any  other  European  woman, 
that  she  should  live  her  life.  Besides,  what  had 
the  black  man  to  do  with  their  private  affairs  ? 

"Zumbul  Agha,"  he  suddenly  heard  himself 
harshly  saying,  "is  this  your  house  or  mine  ?  I 
have  told  you  a  hundred  times  that  you  are  not 
to  trouble  the  Madama,  or  follow  her  about,  or 
so  much  as  guess  where  she  is  and  what  she  is 
doing.  I  have  kept  you  in  the  house  because 
my  father  brought  you  into  it;  but  if  I  ever 
hear  of  you  speaking  to  Madama  again,  or  spy- 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    351 

ing  on  her,  I  will  send  you  into  the  street.  Do 
you  hear?  Now  get  out!" 

"Aman,  my  Pasha!  I  beg  you!"  entreated 
the  eunuch.  There  was  something  ludicrous  in 
his  voice,  coming  as  it  did  from  his  height. 

The  Pasha  wondered  if  he  had  been  too  long  a 
person  of  importance  in  the  family  to  realize  the 
change  in  his  position,  or  whether  he  really 

All  of  a  sudden  a  checkering  of  lamplight 
flickered  through  the  dark  window,  touched  the 
Negro's  black  face  for  a  moment,  travelled  up 
the  wall.  Silence  fell  again  in  the  little  room — 
a  silence  into  which  the  fountain  dropped  its 
silver  patter.  Then  steps  mounted  the  porch 
and  echoed  in  the  other  room,  which  lighted  in 
turn,  and  a  man  came  in  sight,  peering  this  way 
and  that,  with  a  big  white  accordeon  lantern  in 
his  hand.  Behind  the  man  two  other  servants 
appeared,  carrying  on  their  heads  round  wooden 
trays  covered  by  figured  silks,  and  a  boy  tug 
ging  a  huge  basket.  When  they  discovered  the 
three  in  the  little  room  they  salaamed  respect 
fully. 

"Where  shall  we  set  the  table?"  asked  the 
man  with  the  lantern. 

For  the  Pasha  the  lantern  seemed  to  make 
the  world  more  like  the  place  he  had  always 
known.  He  turned  to  his  wife,  apologetically. 

"I  told  them  to  send  dinner  up  here.    It  has 


352         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

been  such  a  long  time  since  we  came.  But  I  for 
got  about  the  table.  I  don't  believe  there  is  one 
here." 

"No,"  uttered  Helene  from  her  sofa,  sitting 
with  her  head  on  her  hand. 

It  was  the  first  word  she  had  spoken.  But, 
little  as  it  was,  it  reassured  him,  like  the  lantern. 

"There  is  the  chest,"  hazarded  Ziimbul  Agha. 

The  interruption  of  the  servants  had  for  the 
moment  distracted  them  all.  But  the  Pasha 
now  turned  on  him  so  vehemently  that  the 
eunuch  salaamed  in  haste  and  went  away. 

"Why  not  ?"  asked  Helene,  when  he  was  gone. 
"We  can  sit  on  the  cushions." 

"Why  not?"  echoed  the  Pasha.  Grateful  as 
he  was  for  the  interruption,  he  found  himself 
wishing,  secretly,  that  Helene  had  discouraged 
his  idea  of  a  picnic  dinner.  And  he  could  not 
help  feeling  a  certain  constraint  as  he  gave  the 
necessary  orders  and  watched  the  servants  put 
down  their  paraphernalia  and  pull  the  chest 
into  the  middle  of  the  room.  There  was  some 
thing  unreal  and  stage-like  about  the  scene,  in 
the  uncertain  light  of  the  lantern.  Obviously 
the  chest  was  not  light.  It  was  an  pld  cypress- 
wood  chest  that  they  had  always  used  in  the 
summer,  to  keep  things  in,  polished  a  bright 
brown,  with  a  little  inlaid  pattern  of  dark  brown 
and  cream  colour  running  around  the  edge  of 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    353 

each  surface,  and  a  more  complicated  design 
ornamenting  the  centre  of  the  cover.  He 
vaguely  associated  his  mother  with  it.  He  felt 
a  distinct  relief  when  the  men  spread  the  cloth. 
He  felt  as  if  they  had  covered  up  more  things 
than  he  could  name.  And  when  they  produced 
candlesticks  and  candles,  and  set  them  on  the 
improvised  table  and  in  the  niches  beside  the 
door,  he  seemed  to  come  back  again  into  the 
comfortable  light  of  common  sense. 

"This  is  the  way  we  used  to  do  when  I  was  a 
boy,"  he  said  with  a  smile,  when  he  and  Helene 
established  themselves  on  sofa  cushions  on 
opposite  sides  of  the  chest.  "Only  then  we  had 
little  tables  six  inches  high,  instead  of  big  ones 
like  this." 

"It  is  rather  a  pity  that  we  have  spoiled  all 
that,"  she  said.  "Are  we  any  happier  for  perch 
ing  on  chairs  around  great  scaffoldings,  and 
piling  the  scaffoldings  with  so  many  kinds  of 
porcelain  and  metal  ?  After  all,  they  knew  how 
to  live — the  people  who  were  capable  of  imagin 
ing  a  place  like  this.  And  they  had  the  good 
taste  not  to  fill  a  room  with  things.  Your 
grandfather,  was  it?" 

He  had  had  a  dread  that  she  would  not  say 
anything,  that  she  would  remain  silent  and 
impenetrable  as  she  had  been  before  Zumbtil 
Agha,  as  if  the  chest  between  them  were  a  bar- 


354         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

rier  that  nothing  could  surmount.  His  heart 
lightened  when  he  heard  her  speak.  Was  it  not 
quite  her  natural  voice  ? 

"It  was  my  great-grandfather,  the  Grand 
Vizier.  They  say  he  did  know  how  to  live — in 
his  way.  He  built  the  kiosque  for  a  beautiful 
slave  of  his,  a  Greek,  whom  he  called  Pome 
granate." 

"Madame  Pomegranate!  What  a  charming 
name!  And  that  is  why  her  cipher  is  every 
where.  See?"  She  pointed  to  the  series  of 
cupboards  and  niches  on  either  side  of  the  door, 
dimly  painted  with  pomegranate  blossoms,  and 
to  the  plaster  reliefs  around  the  hooded  fire 
place,  and  to  the  cluster  of  pomegranates  that 
made  a  centre  to  the  gilt  and  painted  lattice 
work  of  the  ceiling.  "One  could  be  very  happy 
in  such  a  little  house.  It  has  an  air — of  being 
meant  for  moments.  And  you  feel  as  if  they 
had  something  to  do  with  the  wonderful  way  it 
has  faded."  She  looked  as  if  she  had  meant  to 
say  something  else,  which  she  did  not.  But 
after  a  moment  she  added :  "Will  you  ask  them 
to  turn  off  the  water  in  the  fountain?  It  is  a 
little  chilly,  now  that  the  sun  has  gone,  and  it 
sounds  like  rain — or  tears." 

The  dinner  went,  on  the  whole,  not  so  badly. 
There  were  dishes  to  be  passed  back  and  forth. 
There  were  questions  to  be  asked  or  comments 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    355 

to  be  made.  There  were  the  servants  to  be 
spoken  to.  Yet,  more  and  more,  the  Pasha  could 
not  help  wondering.  When  a  silence  fell,  too,  he 
could  not  help  listening.  And  least  of  all  could 
he  help  looking  at  Helene.  He  looked  at  her, 
trying  not  to  look  at  her,  with  an  intense  curi 
osity,  as  if  he  had  never  seen  her  before,  ask 
ing  himself  if  there  were  anything  new  in  her 

face,  and  how  she  would  look  if Would  she 

be  like  this  ?  She  made  no  attempt  to  keep  up  a 
flow  of  words,  as  if  to  distract  his  attention. 
She  was  not  soft  either;  she  was  not  trying  to 
seduce  him.  And  she  made  no  show  of  grati 
tude  toward  him  for  having  sent  Zumbiil  Agha 
away.  Neither  did  she  by  so  much  as  an  inflec 
tion  try  to  insinuate  or  excuse  or  explain.  She 
was  what  she  always  was,  perfect — and  evi 
dently  a  little  tired.  She  was  indeed  more  than 
perfect,  she  was  prodigious,  when  he  asked  her 
once  what  she  was  thinking  about  and  she  said 
Pandora,  tapping  the  chest  between  them.  He 
had  never  heard  the  story  of  that  other  Greek 
girl  and  her  box,  and  she  told  him  gravely  about 
all  the  calamities  that  came  out  of  it,  and  the 
one  gift  of  hope  that  remained  behind. 

"But  I  cannot  be  a  Turkish  woman  long !"  she 
added  inconsequently  with  a  smile.  "My  legs 
are  asleep.  I  really  must  walk  about  a  little." 

When  he  had  helped  her  to  her  feet  she  led 


356         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

the  way  into  the  other  room.  They  had  their 
coffee  and  cigarettes  there.  Helene  walked 
slowly  up  and  down  the  length  of  the  room, 
stopping  every  now  and  then  to  look  into  the 
square  pool  of  the  fountain  and  to  pat  her 
hair. 

The  Pasha  sat  down  on  the  long  low  divan 
that  ran  under  the  windows.  He  could  watch 
her  more  easily  now.  And  the  detachment  with 
which  he  had  begun  to  look  at  her  grew  in  spite 
of  him  into  the  feeling  that  he  was  looking  at  a 
stranger.  After  all,  what  did  he  know  about 
her?  Who  was  she?  What  had  happened  to 
her,  during  all  the  years  that  he  had  not  known 
her,  in  that  strange  free  European  life  which  he 
had  tried  to  imitate,  and  which  at  heart  he 
secretly  distrusted  ?  What  had  she  ever  really 
told  him,  and  what  had  he  ever  really  divined 
of  her?  For  perhaps  the  first  time  in  his  life 
he  realized  how  little  one  person  may  know  of 
another,  and  particularly  a  man  of  a  woman. 
And  he  remembered  Shaban  again,  and  that 
phrase  about  his  wife  being  safer  than  Helene. 
Had  Shaban  really  meant  anything?  Was 
Helene  "safe"  ?  He  acknowledged  to  himself  at 
last  that  the  question  was  there  in  his  mind, 
waiting  to  be  answered. 

Helene  did  not  help  him.  She  had  been  stand 
ing  for  some  time  at  an  odd  angle  to  the  pool, 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    357 

looking  into  it.  He  could  see  her  face  there, 
with  the  eyes  turned  away  from  him. 

"How  mysterious  a  reflection  is!"  she  said. 
"It  is  so  real  that  you  can't  believe  it  disappears 
for  good.  How  often  Madame  Pomegranate 
must  have  looked  into  this  pool,  and  yet  I  can't 
find  her  in  it.  But  I  feel  she  is  really  there,  all 
the  same — and  who  knows  who  else." 

"They  say  mirrors  do  not  flatter,"  the  Pasha 
did  not  keep  himself  from  rejoining,  "but  they 
are  very  discreet.  They  tell  no  tales !" 

Helene  raised  her  eyes.  In  the  little  room  the 
servants  had  cleared  the  improvised  table  and 
had  packed  up  everything  again  except  the 
candles. 

"I  have  been  up  here  a  long  time,"  she  said, 
"and  I  am  rather  tired.  It  is  a  little  cold,  too. 
If  you  do  not  mind  I  think  I  will  go  down  to  the 
house  now,  with  the  servants.  You  will  hardly 
care  to  go  so  soon,  for  Ziimbul  Agha  has  not 
finished  what  he  has  to  say  to  you." 

"Ziimbul  Agha!"  exclaimed  the  Pasha.  "I 
sent  him  away." 

"Ah,  but  you  must  know  him  well  enough  to 
be  sure  he  would  not  go.  Let  us  see."  She 
clapped  her  hands.  The  servant  of  the  lantern 
immediately  came  out  to  her.  "Will  you  ask 
Ziimbul  Agha  to  come  here?"  she  said.  "He  is 
on  the  porch." 


358        IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

The  man  went  to  the  door,  looked  out,  and 
said  a  word.  Then  he  stood  aside  with  a  re 
spectful  salaam,  and  the  eunuch  entered.  He 
negligently  returned  the  salute  and  walked  for 
ward  until  his  air  of  importance  changed  to  one 
of  humility  at  sight  of  the  Pasha.  Salaaming 
in  turn,  he  stood  with  his  hands  folded  in  front 
of  him. 

"I  will  go  down  with  you,"  said  the  Pasha  to 
his  wife,  rising.  "It  is  too  late  for  you  to  go 
through  the  woods  in  the  dark." 

"Nonsense!"  She  gave  him  a  look  that  had 
more  in  it  than  the  tone  in  which  she  added: 
"Please  do  not.  I  shall  be  perfectly  safe  with 
four  servants.  You  can  tell  them  not  to  let  me 
run  away."  Coming  nearer,  she  put  her  hand 
into  the  bosom  of  her  dress,  then  stretched  out 
the  hand  toward  him.  "Here  is  the  key — the 
key  of  which  Zumbiil  Agha  spoke — the  key  of 
Pandora's  box.  Will  you  keep  it  for  me  please  ? 
Au  revoir." 

And  making  a  sign  to  the  servants  she  walked 
out  of  the  kiosque. 

Ill 

The  Pasha  was  too  surprised,  at  first,  to  move 
— and  too  conscious  of  the  eyes  of  servants,  too 
uncertain  of  what  he  should  do,  too  fearful  of 
doing  the  wrong,  the  un-European,  thing.  And 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    359 

afterward  it  was  too  late.  He  stood  watching 
until  the  flicker  of  the  lantern  disappeared  among 
the  dark  trees.  Then  his  eyes  met  the  eunuch's. 

"Why  don't  you  go  down  too?"  suggested 
Ziimbul  Agha.  The  variable  climate  of  a  great 
house  had  made  him  too  perfect  an  opportunist 
not  to  take  the  line  of  being  in  favour  again. 
"It  might  be  better.  Give  me  the  key  and  I  will 
do  what  there  is  to  do.  But  you  might  send  up 
Shaban." 

Why  not,  the  Pasha  secretly  asked  himself? 
Might  it  not  be  the  best  way  out  ?  At  the  same 
time  he  experienced  a  certain  revulsion  of  feel 
ing,  now  that  Helene  was  gone,  in  the  way  she 
had  gone.  She  really  was  prodigious !  And  with 
the  vanishing  of  the  lantern  that  had  brought 
him  a  measure  of  reassurance  he  felt  the  weight 
of  an  uncleared  situation,  fantastic  but  crucial, 
heavy  upon  him.  And  the  Negro  annoyed  him 
intensely. 

"Thank  you,  Ziimbul  Agha,"  he  replied,  "but 
I  am  not  the  nurse  of  Madama,  and  I  will  not 
give  you  the  key." 

If  he  only  might,  though,  he  thought  to  him 
self  again ! 

"You  believe  her,  this  Frank  woman  whom 
you  had  never  seen  five  years  ago,  and  you  do 
not  believe  me  who  have  lived  in  your  house 
longer  than  you  can  remember!" 


360         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

The  eunuch  said  it  so  bitterly  that  the  Pasha 
was  touched  in  spite  of  himself.  He  had  never 
been  one  to  think  very  much  about  minor  per 
sonal  relations,  but  even  at  such  a  moment  he 
could  see — was  it  partly  because  he  wanted 
more  time  to  make  up  his  mind? — that  he  had 
never  liked  Ziimbiil  Agha  as  he  liked  Shaban, 
for  instance.  Yet  more  honour  had  been  due,  in 
the  old  family  tradition,  to  the  former.  And  he 
had  been  associated  even  longer  with  the  his 
tory  of  the  house. 

"My  poor  Ztimbul,"  he  uttered  musingly, 
"you  have  never  forgiven  me  for  marrying  her." 

"My  Pasha,  you  are  not  the  first  to  marry  an 
unbeliever,  nor  the  last.  But  such  a  marriage 
should  be  to  the  glory  of  Islam,  and  not  to  its 
discredit.  Who  can  trust  her?  She  is  still  a 
Christian.  And  she  is  too  young.  She  has 
turned  the  world  upside  down.  What  would 
your  father  have  said  to  a  daughter-in-law  who 
goes  shamelessly  into  the  street  without  a  veil, 
alone,  and  who  receives  in  your  house  men  who 
are  no  relation  to  you  or  to  her  ?  It  is  not  right. 
Women  understand  only  one  thing — to  make 
fools  of  men.  And  they  are  never  content  to 
fool  one." 

The  Pasha,  still  waiting  to  make  up  his  mind, 
let  his  fancy  linger  about  Ztimbul  Agha.  It  was 
really  rather  absurd,  after  all,  what  a  part 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    361 

women  played  in  the  world,  and  how  little  it  all 
came  to  in  the  end !  Did  the  black  man,  he  won 
dered,  walk  in  a  clearer  cooler  world,  free  of  the 
clouds,  the  iridescences,  the  languors,  the  per 
fumes,  the  strange  obsessions,  that  made  others 
walk  so  often  like  madmen?  Or  might  some 
tatter  of  preposterous  humanity  still  work  ob 
scurely  in  him?  Or  a  bitterness  of  not  being 
like  other  men?  That  perhaps  was  why  the 
Pasha  felt  friendlier  toward  Shaban.  They 
were  more  alike. 

"You  are  right,  Zumbul  Agha,"  he  said.  "The 
world  is  upside  down.  But  neither  the  Madama 
nor  any  of  us  made  it  so.  All  we  can  do  is  to 
try  and  keep  our  heads  as  it  turns.  Now,  will 
you  please  tell  me  how  you  happened  to  be  up 
here?  The  Madama  never  told  you  to  come. 
You  know  perfectly  well  that  the  customs  of 
Europe  are  different  from  ours,  and  that  she 
does  not  like  to  have  you  follow  her  about." 

"What  woman  likes  to  be  followed  about?" 
retorted  the  eunuch  with  a  sly  smile.  "I  know 
you  have  told  me  to  leave  her  alone.  But  why 
was  I  brought  into  this  house  ?  Am  I  to  stand 
by  and  watch  dishonour  brought  upon  it  sim 
ply  because  you  have  eaten  the  poison  of  a 
woman  ?" 

"Zumbul  Agha,"  replied  the  Pasha  sharply, 
"I  am  not  discussing  old  and  new  or  this  and 


362         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

that,  but  I  am  asking  you  to  tell  me  what  all  this 
speech  is  about." 

"Give  me  that  key  and  I  will  show  you  what 
it  is  about,"  said  the  eunuch,  stepping  forward. 

But  the  Pasha  found  he  was  not  ready  to  go 
so  directly  to  the  point. 

"Can't  you  answer  a  simple  question?"  he 
demanded  irritably,  retreating  to  the  farther 
side  of  the  fountain. 

The  reflection  of  the  painted  ceiling  in  the 
pool  made  him  think  of  Helene — and  Madame 
Pomegranate.  He  stared  into  the  still  water  as 
if  to  find  Helene's  face  there.  Was  any  other 
face  hidden  beside  it,  mocking  him? 

But  Ziimbul  Agha  had  begun  again,  doggedly : 

"I  came  here  because  it  is  my  business  to  be 
here.  I  went  to  town  this  morning.  When  I  got 
back  they  told  me  that  you  were  away  and  that 
the  Madama  was  up  here,  alone.  So  I  came.  Is 
this  a  place  for  a  woman  to  be  alone  in — a  young 
woman,  with  men  working  all  about  and  I  don't 
know  who,  and  a  thousand  ways  of  getting  in 
and  out  from  the  hills,  and  ten  thousand  hiding 
places  in  the  woods  ?" 

The  Pasha  made  a  gesture  of  impatience,  and 
turned  away.  But  after  all,  what  could  one  do 
with  old  Ziimbul?  He  had  been  brought  up  in 
his  tradition.  The  Pasha  lighted  another  ciga 
rette  to  help  himself  think. 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    363 

"Well,  I  came  up  here,"  continued  the  eunuch, 
"and  as  I  came  I  heard  Madama  singing.  You 
know  how  she  sings  the  songs  of  the  Franks." 

The  Pasha  knew.  But  he  did  not  say  any 
thing.  As  he  walked  up  and  down,  smoking  and 
thinking,  his  eye  caught  in  the  pool  a  reflection 
from  the  other  side  of  the  room,  where  the 
door  of  the  latticed  room  was  and  where  the 
cypress-wood  chest  stood  as  the  servants  had 
left  it  in  the  middle  of  the  floor.  Was  that  what 
Helene  had  stood  looking  at  so  long,  he  asked 
himself?  He  wondered  that  he  could  have  sat 
beside  it  so  quietly.  It  seemed  now  like  some 
thing  dark  and  dangerous  crouching  there  in 
the  shadow  of  the  little  room. 

"I  sat  down,  under  the  terrace,"  he  heard  the 
eunuch  go  on,  ''where  no  one  could  see  me, 
and  I  listened.  And  after  she  had  stopped  I 
heard " 

"Never  mind  what  you  heard,"  broke  in  the 
Pasha.  "I  have  heard  enough." 

He  was  ashamed — ashamed  and  resolved.  He 
felt  as  if  he  had  been  playing  the  spy  with 
Zumbiil  Agha.  And  after  all  there  was  a  very 
simple  way  to  answer  his  question  for  himself. 
He  threw  away  his  cigarette,  went  forward  into 
the  little  room,  bent  over  the  chest,  and  fitted 
the  key  into  the  lock. 

Just  then  a  nightingale  burst  out  singing,  but 


364         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

so  near  and  so  loud  that  he  started  and  looked 
over  his  shoulder.  In  an  instant  he  collected 
himself,  feeling  the  black  man's  eyes  upon  him. 
Yet  he  could  not  suppress  the  train  of  associa 
tion  started  by  the  impassioned  trilling  of  the 
bird,  even  as  he  began  to  turn  the  key  of  the 
chest  where  his  mother  used  to  keep  her  quaint 
old  silks  and  embroideries.  The  irony  of  the 
contrast  paralyzed  his  hand  for  a  strange  mo 
ment,  and  of  the  difference  between  this  spring 
night  and  other  spring  nights  when  nightin 
gales  had  sung.  And  what  if,  after  all,  only 
calamity  were  to  come  out  of  the  chest,  and  he 
were  to  lose  his  last  gift  of  hope!  Ah!  He 
knew  at  last  what  he  would  do!  He  quickly 
withdrew  the  key  from  the  lock,  stood  up 
straight  again,  and  looked  at  Zumbiil  Agha. 

"Go  down  and  get  Shaban,"  he  ordered,  "and 
don't  come  back." 

The  eunuch  stared.  But  if  he  had  anything 
to  say  he  thought  better  of  uttering  it.  He 
saluted  silently  and  went  away. 

IV 

The  Pasha  sat  down  on  the  divan  and  lighted 
a  cigarette.  Almost  immediately  the  nightin 
gale  stopped  singing.  For  a  few  moments 
Zumbiil  Agha's  steps  could  be  heard  outside. 
Then  it  became  very  still.  The  Pasha  did  not 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    365 

like  it.  Look  which  way  he  would  he  could  not 
help  seeing  the  chest — or  listening.  He  got  up 
and  went  into  the  big  room,  where  he  turned 
on  the  water  of  the  fountain.  The  falling  drops 
made  company  for  him,  and  kept  him  from  look 
ing  for  lost  reflections.  But  they  presently 
made  him  think  of  what  Helene  had  said  about 
them.  He  went  out  to  the  porch  and  sat  down 
on  the  steps.  In  front  of  him  the  pines  lifted 
their  great  dark  canopies  against  the  stars. 
Other  stars  twinkled  between  the  trunks,  far 
below,  where  the  shore  lights  of  the  Bosphorus 
were.  It  was  so  still  that  water  sounds  came 
faintly  up  to  him,  and  every  now  and  then  he 
could  even  hear  nightingales  on  the  European 
side.  Another  nightingale  began  singing  in 
his  own  woods — the  nightingale  that  had  told 
him  what  to  do,  he  said  to  himself.  What 
other  things  the  nightingales  had  sung  to 
him,  years  ago !  And  how  long  the  pines  had 
listened  there,  still  strong  and  green  and  rugged 
and  alive,  while  he,  and  how  many  before  him, 
sat  under  them  for  a  little  while  and  then  went 
away! 

Presently  he  heard  steps  on  the  drive  and 
Shaban  came,  carrying  something  dark  in  his 
hand. 

"What  is  that?"  asked  the  Pasha,  as  Shaban 
held  it  out. 


366         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

"A  pistol,  my  Pasha.  Zumbiil  Agha  told  me 
you  wanted  it." 

The  Pasha  laughed  curtly. 

"Ziinibiil  made  a  mistake.  What  I  want  is  a 
shovel,  or  a  couple  of  them.  Can  you  find  such 
a  thing  without  asking  any  one  ?" 

"Yes,  my  Pasha,"  replied  the  Albanian 
promptly,  laying  the  revolver  on  the  steps  and 
disappearing  again.  And  it  was  not  long  before 
he  was  back  with  the  desired  implements. 

"We  must  dig  a  hole,  somewhere,  Shaban," 
said  his  master  in  a  low  voice.  "It  must  be  in  a 
place  where  people  are  not  likely  to  go,  but  not 
too  far  from  the  kiosque." 

Shaban  immediately  started  toward  the  trees 
at  the  back  of  the  house.  The  Pasha  followed 
him  silently  into  a  path  that  wround  through  the 
wood.  A  nightingale  began  to  sing  again,  very 
near  them — the  nightingale,  thought  the  Pasha. 

"He  is  telling  us  where  to  go,"  he  said. 

Shaban  permitted  himself  a  low  laugh. 

"I  think  he  is  telling  his  mistress  where  to  go. 
However,  we  will  go  too."  And  they  did,  bear 
ing  away  to  one  side  of  the  path  till  they  came 
to  the  foot  of  a  tall  cypress. 

"This  will  do,"  said  the  Pasha,  "if  the  roots 
are  not  in  the  way." 

Without  a  word  Shaban  began  to  dig.  The 
Pasha  took  the  other  spade.  To  the  simple 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    367 

Albanian  it  was  nothing  out  of  the  ordinary. 
What  was  extraordinary  was  that  his  master 
was  able  to  keep  it  up,  soft  as  the  loam  was 
under  the  trees.  The  most  difficult  thing  about 
it  was  that  they  could  not  see  what  they  were 
doing,  except  by  the  light  of  an  occasional 
match.  But  at  last  the  Pasha  judged  the  ragged 
excavation  of  sufficient  depth.  Then  he  led  the 
way  back  to  the  kiosque. 

They  found  Zumbul  Agha  in  the  little  room, 
sitting  on  the  sofa  with  a  pistol  in  either  hand. 

"I  thought  I  told  you  not  to  come  back!" 
exclaimed  the  Pasha  sternly. 

"Yes,"  faltered  the  old  eunuch,  "but  I  was 
afraid  something  might  happen  to  you.  So  I 
waited  below  the  pines.  And  when  you  went 
away  into  the  woods  with  Shaban,  I  came  here 
to  watch."  He  lifted  a  revolver  significantly. 
"I  found  the  other  one  on  the  steps." 

"Very  well,"  said  the  Pasha  at  length,  more 
kindly.  He  even  found  it  in  him  at  that  moment 
to  be  amused  at  the  picture  the  black  man  made, 
in  his  sedate  frock  coat,  with  his  two  weapons. 
And  Zumbul  Agha  found  no  less  to  look  at,  in 
the  appearance  of  his  master's  clothes.  "But 
now  there  is  no  need  for  you  to  watch  any 
longer,"  added  the  latter.  "If  you  want  to 
watch,  do  it  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill.  Don't  let 
any  one  come  up  here." 


368         IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

"On  my  head,"  said  the  eunuch.  He  saw  that 
Shaban,  as  usual,  was  trusted  more  than  he. 
But  it  was  not  for  him  to  protest  against  the 
ingratitude  of  masters.  He  salaamed  and  backed 
out  of  the  room. 

When  he  was  gone  the  Pasha  turned  to 
Shaban : 

"This  box,  Shaban — you  see  this  box  ?  It  has 
become  a  trouble  to  us,  and  I  am  going  to  take 
it  out  there." 

The  Albanian  nodded  gravely.  He  took  hold 
of  one  of  the  handles,  to  judge  the  weight  of 
the  chest.  He  lifted  his  eyebrows. 

"Can  you  help  me  put  it  on  my  back?"  he 
asked. 

"Don't  try  to  do  that,  Shaban.  We  will  carry 
it  together."  The  Pasha  took  hold  of  the  other 
handle.  When  they  got  as  far  as  the  outer  door 
he  let  down  his  end.  It  was  not  light.  "Wait  a 
minute,  Shaban.  Let  us  shut  up  the  kiosque,  so 
that  no  one  will  notice  anything."  He  went  back 
to  blow  out  the  candles.  Then  he  thought  of  the 
fountain.  He  caught  a  play  of  broken  images  in 
the  pool  as  he  turned  off  the  water.  When  he 
had  put  out  the  lights  and  had  groped  his  way 
to  the  door  he  found  that  Shaban  was  already 
gone  with  the  chest.  A  last  drop  of  water 
made  a  strange  echo  behind  him  in  the  dark 
kiosque.  He  locked  the  door  and  hurried  after 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    369 

Shaban,  who  had  succeeded  in  getting  the  chest 
on  his  back.  Nor  would  Shaban  let  the  Pasha 
help  him  till  they  came  to  the  edge  of  the  wood. 
There,  carrying  the  chest  between  them,  they 
stumbled  through  the  trees  to  the  place  that 
was  ready. 

"Now  we  must  be  careful,"  said  the  Pasha. 
"It  might  slip  or  get  stuck." 

"But  are  you  going  to  bury  the  box  too?" 
demanded  Shaban,  for  the  first  time  showing 
surprise. 

"Yes,"  answered  the  Pasha.  And  he  added: 
"It  is  the  box  I  want  to  get  rid  of." 

"It  is  a  pity,"  remarked  Shaban  regretfully. 
"It  is  a  very  good  box.  However,  you  know. 
Now  then!" 

There  was  a  scraping  and  a  muffled  thud,  fol 
lowed  by  a  fall  of  earth  and  small  stones  on 
wood.  The  Pasha  wondered  if  he  would  hear 
anything  else.  But  first  one  and  then  another 
nightingale  began  to  fill  the  night  air  with  their 
April  madness. 

"Ah,  there  are  two  of  them,"  remarked  Sha 
ban.  "She  will  take  the  one  that  says  the 
sweetest  things  to  her." 

The  Pasha's  reply  was  to  throw  a  spadeful 
of  earth  on  the  chest.  Shaban  joined  him  with 
such  vigour  that  the  hole  was  very  soon  full. 

"We  are  old,  my  Pasha,  but  we  are  good  for 


370        IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN 

something  yet,"  said  Shaban.  "I  will  hide  the 
shovels  here  in  the  bushes,"  he  added,  "and 
early  in  the  morning  I  will  come  again,  before 
any  of  those  lazy  gardeners  are  up,  and  fix  it  so 
that  no  one  will  ever  know." 

There  at  least  was  a  person  of  whom  one 
could  be  sure!  The  Pasha  realized  that  grate 
fully,  as  they  walked  back  through  the  park. 
He  did  not  feel  like  talking,  but  at  least  he  felt 
the  satisfaction  of  having  done  what  he  had 
decided  to  do.  He  remembered  Ziimbul  Agha 
as  they  neared  the  bottom  of  the  hill.  The 
eunuch  had  not  taken  his  commission  more 
seriously  than  it  had  been  given,  however,  or  he 
preferred  not  to  be  seen.  Perhaps  he  wanted  to 
reconnoitre  again  on  top  of  the  hill. 

"I  don't  think  I  will  go  in  just  yet,"  said  the 
Pasha,  as  they  crossed  the  bridge  into  the  lower 
garden.  "I  am  rather  dirty.  And  I  v/ould  like 
to  rest  a  little  under  the  chestnut  trees.  Would 
you  get  me  an  overcoat  please,  Shaban,  and  a 
brush  of  some  kind  ?  And  you  might  bring  me 
a  coffee,  too." 

How  tired  he  was !  And  what  a  short  time  it 
was,  yet  what  an  eternity,  since  he  last  droppod 
into  one  of  those  wicker  chairs !  He  felt  for  h;s 
cigarettes.  As  he  did  so  he  discovered  some 
thing  else  in  his  pocket,  something  small  and 
hard  that  at  first  he  did  not  recognize.  Then 


IN  THE  PASHA'S  GARDEN    371 

he  remembered  the  key — the  key.  .  .  .  He 
suddenly  tossed  it  into  the  pool  beside  him.  It 
made  a  sharp  little  splash,  which  was  reechoed 
by  the  dripping  basins.  He  got  up  and  felt  in 
the  ivy  for  the  handle  that  shut  off  the  water. 
At  the  end  of  the  garden  the  Bosphorus  lapped 
softly  in  the  dark.  Far  away,  up  in  the  wood, 
the  nightingales  were  singing. 


THE   COUNTRY   LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN    CITY,    N.   Y. 


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